


Now the Time is Here

by NyxEtoile, OlivesAwl



Series: Tales Through the Looking Glass [1]
Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: AU of an AU, Deja Vu, F/M, Fixing Past Mistakes, Gen, Magic, Team as Family, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-25
Updated: 2019-01-25
Packaged: 2019-09-26 22:20:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 21,695
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17150126
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NyxEtoile/pseuds/NyxEtoile, https://archiveofourown.org/users/OlivesAwl/pseuds/OlivesAwl
Summary: “My name is Dr. Steven Strange, and I need your help.”Tony tilted his head. "No, but really, who are you."Sharon shushed him. "That's his name.”“I’m from the future, and I need your help to save the world. I come from a future where a madman has wielded immense cosmic power, and used it to wipe out half of all life in the universe.”"How can we fix that from here?”“You actually can’t. You need to fix it about five years ago. If you try now, it will be too late.”"We'll do it," Steve said. "Just let us suit up-““Not how it works,” Strange said. “Good luck.”





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This story/series is an offshoot of our [Tales From the Tower](https://archiveofourown.org/series/190958) series, occurring just after [ Heavy Boots of Lead](https://archiveofourown.org/works/4373231/chapters/9925835). If you haven’t read that series and are starting here, the first chapter of Heavy Boots has a summary of everything that happened to that point, and description of the OCs.
> 
> There are two things from there we had to kind of retcon to make it fit - the biggest being that Edie Barnes hasn’t been born yet, and we moved Violet’s timing on her kids’ births and husband’s deaths back a year. Everything else is the same.
> 
> Merry Christmas to all who celebrate. You can thank all the chatter about the Endgame trailer for this one. Posting Tuesdays.

The aftermath of almost causing an apocalypse was messy. 

Tony probably deserved to have it publicly declared his fault and be bankrupted by the clean-up of Sokovia, but the government found it useful to blame Ultron himself on ‘rouge actors,' painting the Avengers as heroes for the incredibly low death toll.

“You blew up a city, and 200 people died. That’s a downright miracle.” Sharon Carter sat across from him, giving him the bullet points of the slew of meetings she’d had in Washington. “I got ears with the right people. Turns out Fury still has some friends here and there.”

“So you won’t be facing a charge of Grand Theft Helicarrier?” he asked. They wouldn’t have saved very many lives at all if she and Fury hadn’t shown up with that damn thing. God knows where they stole it from. He thought they’d all been destroyed after the fall of SHIELD.

“No. They don’t mind forgiving things that nobody knows about. Hence, you. People are pretty wound up about what the entire world saw. Like the Hulk smashing Johannesburg.”

Tony sighed and rubbed the back of his neck. "What should I do about that?"

She spread her hands. "I'm still working on it. But I think Bruce should get out of New York for a while.”

“Out of the city or off the grid?”

"I mean, the city for sure, but off the grid might be wise.”

Tony wasn’t surprised, but he was unhappy just the same. “I’ll go down and talk to him and Violet.”

"I'm sorry. It's just until I finish negotiations.”

“It’s valid. I know how bad it looks.” He stood up. “Thanks, Sharon.”

"You're welcome. I'll keep at it.”

He squeezed her arm as he left. Steve Rogers had good taste in girlfriends.

One floor below his penthouse, where the rest of the Avengers lived, Tony knocked on Bruce Banner’s door. He actually had to wait for someone to come open it, because he hadn’t installed FRIDAY or anything else in the tower to replace JARVIS. At the moment he couldn’t bring himself to. 

Inside that apartment was the most important thing in the world to him, and she came hurtling towards him on her chubby little legs with her arms up. “Da! Da!”

He scooped his daughter up and tossed her in the air before tucking her on his hip. "Hello little girl. Are you having fun?”

“Ibit ga ibda,” Ruby replied seriously.

“She’s been yammering at me in her language all day.” He and Pepper had hired Violet Marsh to look after their daughter during the day. Not a nanny—he was obstinately pedantic about this—but a babysitter. Who lived in the building and watched Ruby full time. 

But she made one of his best friends very happy, so it all worked out. Or, at least, it had started to. “Is Bruce here?”

She pointed. "In his office. Totally working on something and not stewing.”

Tony sighed. “Right. Come with me. You should be part of this conversation.”

Explaining to someone they’d have to go hide in a foreign country for an indefinite period of time was not a fun thing. All Tony could promise him was lots and lots of money to make his exile comfortable. “And we’ll throw you a really nice going away party.”

Bruce chuckled at that, holding Violet's hand tightly. "Thanks, Tony.”

“We will do everything we can to make it as short as possible.”

From there, he took Ruby downstairs with him to the infirmary to talk to Doc about the medical field suits she’d convinced him to mass produce. Amanda Newbury had been brought on as a staff doctor and ended up an Avenger. She was also one of the only people on earth who could reliably win an argument with him.

"My friend at MSF damn near had a heart attack when I called and talked to her," she said, spinning in her lab chair. "I want to do training sessions here with small batches until they can set up their own training.”

“I think that’s probably good. Start small. See how they work with people of different builds. Everybody I’ve built suits for has been around the same height. Different scales will be a new experience.”

"I warned her there'd be a transition period.”

“It’ll give me something to occupy myself, what with Bruce gone.” 

She nodded sadly. “Sharon told me.”

“Yeah, well. . .” he sighed. It was what it was. “Bring your husband up for dinner tomorrow, we’re having a thing. I promise it won’t get crashed by evil robots. Mine or anyone else’s.”

"Won't miss it." She looked at him a moment. He thought she was probably thinking of something comforting to say.

Finally, she reached out and patted his arm. "When we're done with the MSF suits I'll find you another project.”

“That I don’t doubt for a second.” 

The party was a relaxed affair, considering how the last party had gone down—crazed robot, floating city, stashing everyone in the underground bunker Pepper was still a little mad at him for building against her wishes. 

Booze helped everybody’s mood, too.

"I have never seen you drunk. Are you sure you haven't taken a hit of your own medicine?"

Teasing Doc improved his in particular.

Barnes put his arm around her shoulders. "Jealous my girl can out drink you, Stark?”

“Honestly? Yes. Yes I am.”

“Oh, honey, I’m so proud of you,” Pepper said. The baby monitor sitting on the coffee table beeped, and she leaned over and poked it. “Also, please put an AI in this damn building. I’m tired of this stupid thing.”

Violet shook her head. "Poor Pepper, having to parent like the normals."

Everyone cracked up at the sudden sass from the usually sweet Violet. "I see you've grown comfortable with your boss," Bruce said when he could be heard again.

“She’s drunk, too,” Jane Foster said. She poked Thor. “Did you pass that flask around again?”

“Only to Bucky and Steve,” he said primly. “I was hoping there would be singing like last Thanksgiving.”

“Still heartbroken I missed that,” Sharon said.

“I’m going to go check the baby,” Pepper said, standing up and kissing the top of Tony’s head as she went. She pointed at him. “No mead.”

He spread his hands. "Can I make Doc drink some?”

“No, I like Doc.” She disappeared off into the hallway.

“Is everyone tipsy enough for me to break out the cards?” Natasha asked. “I could use some spending money.”

Sharon pointed at her accusingly. "Never again, Romanov.”

“So no, not drunk enough, yet.”

The round of laughs was followed by another round of drinks. Tony leaned back on the couch with a sigh. They'd all needed this. A little unwinding, a little teasing. Pepper came back with Ruby tucked against her shoulder. The baby had on footie pajamas and clutched her favorite blanket—which Auntie Amanda had knit her. “She didn’t want to be put down,” Pepper said.

"The more the merrier!" Thor announced, waving at the little girl.

On the other side of the room, there was a flash of light, and what could only be described as a portal opened, and disheveled man wearing a large cape stepped through it.

There was a moment of utter silence as they all stared. Then Barnes said, "What the fuck?”

The man held up his hands to show he wasn’t armed. “What’s today’s date?”

Tony wanted to call one of his suits up, but he couldn’t because there was no building-wide AI. He settled for standing up so he could put Pepper and Ruby behind him. Steve and Thor both stood up, too. “Who are you?”

The man looked exasperated. “Did you just beat a genocidal robot? Ultron, I think his name was?”

There was a rumble and a jolt and then Moljnir punched right up through the floor and into Thor’s hand. At least someone could summon a weapon.

Steve had tried to step in front of Sharon, but she dodged around him. "Yes, we fought Ultron two days ago. It's the fifteenth of September.”

“2017?”

“Who _are_ you?” Tony demanded again.

“My name is Dr. Steven Strange, and I need your help.”

Tony tilted his head. "No, but really, who are you."

Sharon shushed him. "That's his name.”

“I’m from the future, and I need your help to save the world.”

Amanda lifted a hand. "Thor. I'll take some of that mead now.”

“I’ve heard your name,” Steve said. “You were on Sitwell’s list of Insight targets.”

“That doesn’t surprise me, but it’s not the point. I come from a future where a madman has wielded immense cosmic power, and used it to wipe out half of all life in the universe.” 

"How can we fix that from here?”

“You actually can’t. You need to fix it about five years ago. If you try now, it will be too late.”

This was one of those conversations Tony really wished he could have sober. "I feel like you've started in the middle and this is one of those conversations that needs to start at the beginning.”

“The path to the decimation began with the Tesseract. It contains an Infinity Stone. There are six in total, he needed all six to do it, so one of them has to be destroyed. I’ve seen millions of permutations and the only one that is feasible is this. I need to send you back to fix it.”

"How do we destroy it?" Nat asked. "It seemed pretty indestructible.”

“They can destroy themselves, and each other,” Thor said, sounding resigned. “At that particular moment in time, we had two of them, though we didn’t know it.”

“I don’t think you can destroy them,” Jane said. “They are elemental powers of the universe. But they might be able to be broken apart and scattered, though. Though they will eventually reform.”

“He’s mortal. Thanos, the madman,” Strange said. “Shove the pieces to opposite ends of the universe a couple centuries apart would have the same effect. Whatever you do, this is your window.”

Steve looked over at Tony, but didn't say anything. The two of them, for better or worse, were the heads of this team. When they disagreed or kept secrets bad shit happened. But right now, he figured they were probably in perfect agreement. So he gave him a nod.

"We'll do it," Steve said. "Just let us suit up-“

“Not how it works,” Strange said. “Good luck.” He pushed his hands forward and the portal grew rapidly in size. There was a chorus of cries of alarm as the portal closed around them. The last thing Tony heard Strange say was, “Shit, is that a baby?” before the green light swallowed them.

*

The moment of blinding light and vestibular disorientation passed slowly. Amanda blinked rapidly, and found herself looking at a supply cabinet. She turned immediately to see if James was okay and where the others were, but she was alone.

She was also no longer in the Tower, though she was somewhere very familiar. Turning back to the supply cabinet, she pretended to study it as she figured where the hell she was.

Of course, _when_ she was might be the better question. Strange had said they had to go back five years, which was before SHIELD had fallen. She wasn't with the others so where-

She found herself staring at her left hand, which no longer had the little platinum wedding ring on it. She also realized her right knee, which she'd dislocated a couple years ago, didn't ache. 

This was SHIELD. Her lab in the Triskelion. She glanced again at the people in the lab behind her. Some strange, some very familiar. Her eyes fell on Tiff Meyer, who had fought with her when the Trisk fell and was now her head nurse in the Tower. She looked so young she was practically a kid. She had been, SHIELD hired her right out of school.

She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. Five years. What had been happening five years ago? Something about a tesseract and Infinity stones and-

Shit. The Battle of New York. Loki, aliens. The others were on a helicarrier or in Germany now.

And James was in cryo in Siberia, still under Hydra control.

Breathe. In and out. Find your center and solve the current problem, then worry about the next. Right now, she needed to find the others and get to New York.

“Hey, Dr. Newbury?” one of the lab assistants whose name she didn’t remember called. He was holding a phone. Still attached to its base with a curly cord. “You have a call. Some guy from IT. He says it’s urgent.” 

Summoning a smile she nodded and turned, reaching for the phone. "Thanks." She half turned away again as she held the phone to her ear. "This is Dr. Newbury.”

“Hi,” said a familiar voice. “I’m Cal Bennet. Do you know who I am and does the word Ultron mean anything to you.”

"Yes," she replied, trying to keep relief out of her voice. "It's good to hear from you.”

“Oh, thank God. For a minute I thought I might have lost my mind. Are we really in the past?”

"I think so. Would it be easier to talk in person? Where are you located?”

“Right now I’m in a hallway in sub-basement B. It’s loud in the server room, but it will be private. Bring a sweater.”

"I'll be down in a minute." She hung up and went over to the rack that held her coat. "Some mix up with equipment," she said to her confused looking nurses. "Not sure when I'll be back.”

She took the elevator down to Sub Basement B, and Cal was standing on the other side of the doors when they opened. Like Tiff, she was surprised at how young he was. He had a somewhat ill-advised goatee and his hair was cut so short you couldn’t see it was curly. He grinned at her. “Hi, Doc.”

She stepped off the elevator. "Hi. I'm going to hug you, don't be scared.”

He chuckled and hugged her. “This is really terrifying and insane,” he said “But on the other hand, dude, nothing hurts.” Cal had been crushed in the rubble of this building when it collapsed—or would collapse—in 2014. He’d broken a lot a bones, including his spine. “I didn’t even remember what that was like. On the other, other hand, I have no idea where my fiancée is.”

Amanda tipped her head back. "I _think_ Jane was moved somewhere out of the way once SHIELD figured out Loki was on Earth. I'm sure Darcy is with her. My husband is currently in cryo sleep somewhere in Sibera.”

“God. I’m sorry. There’s probably info on where he is somewhere in these servers, but I don’t have that kind of access.”

The elevator opened behind her, and they both turned. Sharon Carter was inside. “Cal. Amanda.”

"Sharon!" They said in unison. Amanda hugged her too, because it was that sort of day.

"We need to get to New York," Sharon said. "I checked the latest reports and Loki is on the Helicarrier heading here.”

“Uh, can any of us fly a plane?” Cal asked.

"I can," Sharon said. "But I don't have access to them."

Amanda blew out a breath. "I can get one.”

“Do I want to know how? Sharon asked.

"Confidence and bullshit.”

“It’s a start.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Glad everybody is enjoying this. We're so excited to write it. Happy New Year!!

“Excuse me, did we come to your planet and blow stuff up?”

That was the first thing Steve heard when the disorientation cleared. Nick Fury talking off to his left. Tony was standing in front of him, looking younger and with different hair and. . . the arc reactor still in his chest. _What the. . .?_

From the other side of the room, Thor replied, “What?” to Fury, sounding genuinely confused. Steve looked over at him. Different hair, too, and Asgardian armor. Nat in her SHIELD gear. Bruce with no gray hair.

Fury seemed nonplussed by Thor’s reply, and the way they were suddenly all silent and looking at one another. They were on the helicarrier. In 2012. Was this in the lab when they were all fighting?

“Jesus Christ, that outfit is even more ridiculous than my memory,” Tony said to Steve. Steve looked down. It wasn’t wrong.

"Holy shit," Bruce said. "He sent us _here_ of all places?”

“Where’s everybody else?” Nat asked.

“Probably wherever they were in 2012,” Steve replied.

“What. The Fuck. Is going on?” Fury asked.

Nat took a deep breath. "Okay. Nick, this isn't going to make any sense but just bear with us a minute. We were all just sent back from five years in the future because a wizard named Strange showed up said we had to come back here and fix things so we don't end up in a bad future.”

He looked around at them. “Okay,” he said slowly. “I don’t know how to verify that, but the tone in this room just changed so drastically, it doesn’t sound that crazy.”

“Trust me,” Steve said. “This is way better than standing around listening to Tony and I be assholes to each other.”

“I remember that,” Tony said. “You called me selfish and I called you a lab experiment.”

“And then I wanted to take it outside so we could punch each other.”

“I don’t know what your problem was, but I’m going blame my father’s. . .” He trailed off and didn’t finish. He looked like something awful occurred to him.

“What is it?” Nat asked after a beat of silence.

“We’re in our bodies from 7 years ago. What happens to someone who didn’t exist yet?” Tony looked around. “I need to call Pepper.” 

Behind them, some piece of equipment began beeping stridently. It stirred something in Steve’s memory, but he couldn’t quite-

"Wait," Bruce said. "If we were all just fighting. Then isn't Clint about to-"

Before he could finish the helicarrier gave a shudder, then the room exploded.

Alarms blared as everyone went flying. Steve ended up on the floor, jarred enough his vision swam. He pushed himself up on his arms and called, “Everybody okay?”

In return there were a chorus of affirmative replies, and one curse that morphed into the Hulk’s roar. Hulk crashed across the room and leapt out the back window into the bowels of the ship.

“Thor?” Steve called.

“I got him,” he replied, hopping up and chasing after Hulk. Better him than Nat, who had to deal with him last time.

“I need to find my suit, there’s an engine out,” Tony said.

“Engine three, I remember,” Steve replied as they helped each other up on the listing deck. “Meet you there. Nat?” 

"I think I'll skip getting chased by Hulk and go right to finding Clint.”

“Maybe he’ll be himself,” Steve said. “Good luck.”

Hill came over the comm asking for help with the engine they already knew they needed to get to. It took Tony a minute to remember where his suit was, and Steve followed him. “I’ll meet you there.”

“Try to hit the damn lever promptly, this time, huh?”

This was the most intense deja vu Steve had ever had in his entire life.

*

One moment Pepper had been sitting on her couch, her daughter in her arms, listening to a wizard talk about time travel. The next thing she knew, she was standing on a street corner, looking at the US Capitol. She was still holding Ruby, who was naked—not even a diaper. 

Her assistant, Jess, was standing next to her, mouth open. “Uh. Where did that come from?”

Pepper herself didn’t really know what was going on, but she guessed this sidewalk was not the place to discuss it. “Call the car. Right now.”

While they waited, she shrugged her jacket off to wrap around the baby. Ruby fussed a little, and turned to tug at Pepper’s shirt, asking to nurse. After a year of this, just the hungry yanking was enough to start a let down, but her breasts didn’t tingle. In fact, she couldn’t feel them at all. Like back before the Extremis had fixed them, when she’d had a preventative mastectomy before they killed her like they had her mother.

The car showed up, and she and Jess got in while she contemplated the apparent, unavoidable fact that she seemed to be in the past. And in her body from back then. But then how did she have Ruby?

“Okay, seriously, one minute you were standing there and a baby just appeared in your arms,” Jess said. "Am I losing my mind?”

“No. I have a solid but completely insane explanation that you probably won’t believe.”

"I saw a baby appear from nowhere, I'm feeling open minded.”

Pepper sighed. “She’s from the future. She’s my daughter, her name is Ruby. We really need to get her a diaper and some formula.”

Jessica stared at her a moment. Then shrugged and nodded. "There's a CVS a few blocks from here.”

Her phone rang then, and she fished it out—clunky and enormous though it was—and saw it was Tony. She answered it with, “Hi, I’ve got Ruby, she’s fine.”

"Oh thank God. I'm on the helicarrier, it just got blown up.”

“God, it’s that day? That Strange guy has some timing.”

“You’re telling me. A few days would have—God damnit, JARVIS, _why_ does this have so many pieces?”

Tony must have called through the helmet, because she could hear JARVIS loud and clear on the line—and felt an ache of nostalgia at the familiar voice. “Sir, it has the same amount of pieces it always had.”

"It has more than it will have," Tony grumbled. "Pepper, can you do me a favor and try to get in touch with everyone who's not on the team? I think Doc is in DC. I have no idea where Jane or the others are. . . Hey, shit, is Violet's first husband still alive?”

“I’m not sure. That’s got to be. . . a mess. You’d think he could have warned us how this was going to work.”

"It would have really helped, yeah. Shit, fuck I hate this suit. Okay, finally. I have to go save the day, but I'll be in touch, I promise.”

“I love you, be safe,” she told him.

"I love you too, give Ruby kisses for me.”

“Da!” Ruby shrieked.

“I love you, too, little bits.”

When she hung up, Jess said, “Okay, skipping over the whole time travel or whatever thing I haven’t bent my head around yet. . .That was adorable, and I’m really happy for you guys.”

“Thank you,” she said. “Diapers first, then I have some calls to make.”

"Got it." Jess leaned forward to give the driver directions to the CVS, then made a few notes on what Pepper needed. When they parked, Jess ran in for her and returned with several plastic bags full of supplies. 

She got Ruby diapered and dressed—in “dress” made from a pre-schooler sized tourist t-shirt—and happily drinking a bottle. Then she called into JARVIS. “Okay. I’ve got some people I need to find.”

*

Clint came through the other side of their little time jump into a body he couldn’t control. He was back under Loki’s control. He had a stretch of horrifying, unbridled panic until he figured out he was in the past. It wasn’t happening again, he was just reliving it. But he did have to relive it. Blowing up the helicarrier. Shooting at his friends. Killing SHIELD Agents.

Holding a knife to his wife’s throat, and meaning to use it.

Their fight seemed over faster than the first time, and it was definitely earlier than it had been before. Maybe she fought better. Maybe he pulled his punches more. But it was a relief when she cold-clocked him, and he woke up shackled to a bed.

Nat was sitting next to him, just like last time. "Better?" she asked.

He squinted at her. His head was killing him. She looked like she had back then, but he hoped the current version of her was in there. “I quit. I don’t want to be an Avenger anymore. Bring on armageddon.”

She smiled. "And miss out on our awesome apartment and comfy recliner?”

“Stuff I could live without,” he said. “But I’d miss the cat.” 

"You do love that cat." She reached down and unhooked his restraints. "Everyone on the team body swapped, too. Which made the whole mess go a lot quicker.”

He rubbed his face. “Did Loki get away?”

"He did. But Coulson is alive and everyone is still on the carrier.”

He smiled. “Already we are improving history.” He closed his eyes. “But I still blew up the ship and killed people.”

"I'm sorry, Clint." He felt her stroke his hair gently. "If it helps at all, the casualty numbers are down significantly from the first time around, because we all knew what we were doing this time." Now a kiss on his forehead. "And it does sort of prove there's nothing you could have done to fight Loki's control. If whatever magic Strange used to send us here didn't break it, nothing could.”

He opened his eyes again, and sat up. “I’m not going to enjoy the return of the nightmares.” He looked up at her. “But I am going to get that arrow through his eye socket this time.”

"Amen to that. Come on, the rest of them are waiting for us in the meeting room. Trying to explain this to Fury, Hill, and Coulson.”

“I am really sorry I’m missing that.”

Fortunately, it was still going on when they got there. "Tell me again about the homicidal robots we saved you from." Hill looked utterly fascinated.

"No, I want to go back to how I died, that sounds badass."

Steve rubbed his head with a sigh as Stark spotted them. "Oh look, a distraction. Did we mention they're married.”

“Oh, good,” Coulson said, sounding sincere.

“The two of them are the worst kept secret in SHEILD,” Hill said. “But congrats.”

“I had JARVIS turn the arc reactor off,” Tony said. “But they only needed it for the boost and the cube is already self sustaining. Turned it back on so the elevators work while they’re evacuating the building.” He was still in his suit. 

“He had trouble getting into it, and didn’t want to take it off,” Steve said.

“Where’s everyone else?” Clint asked. Bruce wasn’t even there, and Nat had said everyone was still on the ship.

“Hulk is downstairs,” Tony said. “Thor calmed him down and we gave him a couple of tubs of ice cream, but he won’t give Bruce back. He’s probably freaked out, but I think future Hulk came back, too, since he seems to trust us.”

“We’re trying to find Violet,” Thor said. “Her first husband may still be alive.”

“That’s. . . awkward,” Clint said.

“Someone took a jet from the Triskelion,” Hill said. “It’s in stealth mode so we can’t track or hail it, but take-off clearance override was issued via authorization codes belonging to retired Director Peggy Carter. They shouldn’t still be active, but apparently they are. Logic says that’s 13.”

It amused Clint how widely Steve was grinning. He was clearly very proud of Sharon. “Peggy wouldn’t do that for anyone else.”

“The jet they stole was a med-vac unit,” Tony said. “Sounds like she found Doc.”

“Jane and Darcy were in Norway,” Thor said. “They’re on their way back now. We’ll need her to figure out how to destroy the cube, I suspect.”

“Pepper and Ruby are safe in DC,” Tony said. 

There was one they very distinctly hadn’t mentioned. “Where’s Barnes?” Clint asked Steve, because Steve would know if anyone did.

Sure enough, Steve sighed. “We think frozen in Siberia. At least that’s where he would have been in 2012.”

“Jesus,” Clint said.

“We should probably discuss the bad news now,” Nat said. “If Strange had dropped us 30 minutes earlier, this wouldn’t have been a problem, but in the chaos Loki got away, and took the scepter with him.”

“So we have to go to New York and fight him for it,” Steve said. “And the aliens, too.”

"On the bright side," Thor said. "We now have time to strategize and a good idea of what we're up again."

"As well as how to stop them," Nat added.

Stark raised a hand. "Can it involve me not flying a nuke into a wormhole?”

“I think it has to go up there, though,” Steve said. “If we don’t actually destroy the Chitari army, they may come back.

“How about we just fire it up there?”

“I can’t authorize a nuke over Manhattan,” Fury said. “Did I the first time?”

“You didn’t tell him?” Clint asked.

Steve sighed. “The World Security Council overruled you and and fired one _at_ Manhattan, to wipe out the invaders and also the city.” He looked over at Nat. “You know, in retrospect, the whole Hydra thing makes that make a lot more sense.”

“What Hydra thing?” Fury asked.

“One thing at a time,” Nat said. “We’ll explain that later.”

"I think something less than a nuke would destroy the mothership," Stark said, leaning back in his chair. "It's just all I had at the time. How close are we to New York?"

“We’re not really sure, our satellite link is down. Not that far, though.”

“Last time we took jets,” Clint said. 

"It'll be easier to get out on the ground from jets," Hill pointed out.

"Do we want to bring some agents to help with crowd control and fighting?”

“That’s a good idea,” Steve said. “Also, Fury, if you know someone to call to start closing streets and getting people moving out of the area before the portal opens. . .”

"I can make some calls," he said. "Give me what radius you want.”

“39th to 49th and 3rd to 5th,” Steve replied immediately. 

“We gotta go,” Tony said. “JARVIS says Loki just showed up. They’ll open the portal soon.”

“Apparently everything is happening faster,” Clint muttered.

"Right," Steve said, now in full Cap mode. "We'll take a jet and start fighting. Hill, round up some agents and get them on the ground for crowd control as soon as you can. Tony, I want some idea for blowing the mothership that don't involve a nuke." He looked at Fury. "And we're gonna need some of those alien weapons you've been working on.”


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yep, we'll be doing Tuesdays & Thursdays.

“There’s Manhattan,” Sharon said, pointing at the skyline visible out the window. “I don’t see the portal yet.”

“Maybe they stopped it,” Amanda said.

“I don’t know that we’re that lucky. I’m going to drop out of stealth now and see if can contact Fury’s helicarrier without getting shot at by—” She startled as Iron Man blew by them out of nowhere. “Oh, hey.”

Cal came up into the cockpit. “Doc, if you let me sit there, I think I can patch us in to JARVIS.”

"By all means," she said, moving out of her seat. "I'm going to double check our supplies and pick my gun.”

Cal typed on the console for a few while Sharon debated where to land. Eventually, he pressed a button triumphantly and a slightly exasperated JARVIS came over the comm. “Can I help you?”

"Hi, JARVIS," Sharon said. "I don't know if Tony's explained what's going on, but could you tell him Sharon Carter is calling?”

“Ah, yes, he did. Do you have Dr. Newbury-Barnes with you? He was very concerned about her.”

"I'm here!" she yelled from the back.

"Yes," Sharon said. "I have Cal Bennet, too. Who looks like he's about sixteen.”

“I’ll patch you through,” JARVIS said.

Tony’s voice came over immediately. “There you are! Where did you detour to, Mars?”

"I had to steal a plane, Tony, it takes a minute. We were gonna set down in the Park to start a triage center, unless you want us elsewhere.”

“Bryant Park is just outside the perimeter, do it there. We’re hoping to contain the chaos better. Then you come fight with us. Without a suit, I’d rather Doc not be on the front lines.”

"Got it. You have anything for Cal to do?”

“What do I look like, human resources?”

“It’s fine,” Cal said. “I’ll help Doc. This me can carry heavy things.”

"Congrats," Tony said.

"I'll see you soon," Sharon told him.

“Sooner the better,” he replied. “I gotta go get my other suit. See if I can manage to not get thrown out the window this time.”

"Good luck!" she called before he hung up. "Landing in two minutes, Doc," she called to the back.

"I'm ready when you are.”

The crowds were quite confused when they landed, because nothing was blowing up yet. Sharon got hung up at the police perimeter, and had to fish out her SHIELD badge before they’d let her through. She ran the few block to Stark Tower, and got there just in time to see Tony come flying out a window 70 stories up. She stared in horror until a suit shot out the after him and caught him just before he hit the ground. Then he blasted right back up.

Cal’s voice came over her comm. “Hey, I’m working on getting you patched into JARVIS, should just be a minute.” On the top of the building, a blue beam shot into the sky.

"The portal's opening," she told him. "So sooner would be better.”

“Yeah, I can see that from here.”

The Chitari came pouring out. Sharon had seen the archive footage, but it was something else to see it in person. She watched until she heard jet engines, and turned in time to see a SHIELD jet swoop between the buildings and land on the bridge of the Park Ave Viaduct above her. Feedback sounded in her ear, and then her comm patched in.

Clint Barton was talking. “Last time I flew up there, and Loki blew out an engine with that stick.”

“I need to get up there,” Thor said.

“Well, you can fly,” Clint replied.

“Stop arguing and shoot things!” Tony yelled from wherever he was.

“Thor, go. We’ll be behind you in a minute.” _Steve_.

Tracking the jet, she jogged down the block, closer to the Tower. "Hey guys, what took you so long.”

There was a chorus of overlapping greetings. Then the jet back gate opened, and she could see Steve come down the ramp. He went right up on the bridge railing and jumped off, landing on the sidewalk she was on.

She absolutely didn't care that they were supposed to be fighting aliens. She launched herself at him to hug him. He lifted her off her feet. “Hi.”

"I missed you," she informed him.

“I missed you, too,” he replied.

“Come on, don’t do that in front of Doc,” Tony said. “Her husband’s in a cryo tank somewhere.”

"Siberia," she said, in her usual deadpan. "And thanks for bringing it up.”

“For the record, I’m as worried about him as you are,” Steve said to Doc. Then he kissed Sharon’s forehead. “Come on. We’ve got some fun new weapons.”

"I can't wait to kick some alien ass," she told him as they headed for the fray. "I missed out last time.”

*

The previous year of Violet’s life had been so strange—move to New York, work for a billionaire, fall in love with a superhero who sometimes turned into a giant monster, as you do—that a wizard showing up to talk about time travel had just seemed like one more thing. But she hadn’t imaged that a) she would be doing any of said time travel, or b) that it would involve her suddenly being herself from the past.

But there she was, with a baby and a toddler and a house still full of her very recently deceased husband’s things. She had no idea where anyone else was or how to get ahold of them. Assuming they were here, too.

Instead she was stuck doing what she’d been doing five years ago, sitting on the couch feeding Neil, watching the news coverage of the Battle of New York. She probably hadn’t felt quite this helpless back then.

Her phone was ringing.

Praying it wasn't her mother, she shifted a dozing Neil to her shoulder and stretched over to answer it. “Hello?"

“Violet? This is Pepper Potts.”

"Oh, thank God. Are you all right? Is everyone here?”

She could hear the sigh of relief. “Yes. Everyone, even Ruby, even though that makes no sense.” She paused. “Are Neil and Ada. . .?”

"An infant and a three year old. No memory of anything, far as I can tell.”

“Makes sense. They weren’t in the room when we got. . . swallowed.” There was a pause. “I’m sure they’ll be fine when we get back home.”

"I'm sure they will." She rubbed Neil's back. "Is there a plan? Should I try to come down there?”

“I ask because it’s 2012—do you have a smartphone capable of video calls?”

"I do, actually. I got one for Christmas the year before.”

“It took me a while to find you. I didn’t. . . I didn’t realize Hal was short for Henry.” Because nearly everything would still be listed in her late husband’s name. “But last I talked to Tony, Bruce was stuck as the Hulk. He’s still on the helicarrier because they couldn’t get him in a jet. But they need him for the fight.”

"You're hoping some face time with me will help him reboot?”

“That’s the hope.”

"I'll give it a try. Have them call me? Or should I call them?”

“I’ll get ahold of Hill and have them call you. Hopefully their comms are back up.”

"All right. I'll wait for the call then.”

It was another fifteen minutes before the video call came. The strangest part was Maria Hill, someone who she regularly had girls night with, asked, “Are you Violet?” She hadn’t been in the portal, either.

"I am," she said, trying not to feel too sad about that. "Pepper told me you'd call.”

“You really think you can talk the Hulk down?”

"If it's the Hulk from my time, then I know I can.”

“We’ll see.”

Violet got a tour of the bowels of the carrier via Hill’s phone, before entering some sort of cargo bay. Hill was clearly nervous, but held up the phone. Hulk was in the middle of messily eating a bag of popcorn, and stopped to squint at the screen. If he wasn’t from her time, there was no way he’d be that chill. Bruce had told her what the Hulk was like back in these days. Before he met Tony, who was the first person Bruce had ever met who saw something other than monster.

She waved. "Hi Big Guy. You recognize me?"

Hulk tilted his head and huffed before rumbling, "Violet."

Oh good, definitely her Hulk. "Hey honey. I know everything is weird now, but we need you to let Bruce out so he can go help the others. I'm sure he'll let you come out and play again once he's on the ground. You can smash the aliens, you remember that?”

He grunted. “Little ones?”

"They're just fine." She shifted so he could see baby Neil sleeping on her shoulder. "Just a little smaller. We're in Connecticut, so we're safe. But you need to help the others to keep it that way.”

“Smash aliens!”

"Yes!" she said brightly. "But first, can I please talk to Bruce?”

He huffed and pouted, and then said, “Okay.” She could see him start to shrink.

She heard Maria mutter something she couldn't make out, then Bruce was standing there, looking a little rumpled, but younger and thinner than he'd been when she met him. He saw the phone and reached out to take it. "Vi, are you all right? Is that Neil?!"

Tension she hadn't realized she was holding drained from her. "Hi, Bruce. I'm okay. Yep, this is baby Neil. I know this isn't the right time but you look really hot.”

He laughed out loud. “God, I love you. I have to go fight the damn aliens, and then I’ll come find you.”

"All right. Be careful, I'll see you soon.”

When he hung up, all she could do was go back to watching the news. 

*

Nat had forgotten how exhausting fighting the aliens had been. She had also not noticed how reckless she had been as a younger woman.

"You're right," she panted, hiding behind a car with Clint. "This is nothing like Budapest.”

Over the comm, Tony said, “I’ve got the giant flying armored dinosaur. . .thing. I really hated it the first time, and now it’s back.” He sounded pretty casual about that.

“Those were fun!” Thor said from wherever he was.

“Says you.”

"Anyone heard an update on Hulk?" Steve asked. "He was useful against those."

"Hill called in," Amanda replied. "They got a hold of Violet who got him to change into Bruce. He's on his way with the next batch of SHIELD agents. ETA three minutes.”

“Thank you, Jesus,” Tony said. “Hey, Barton, can we put you up on a roof, I need eyes?”

Clint cast her a look that was concerned and questioning. She nodded at him, tapping her comm to mute it. "Go. I'll rally with Cap and 13." In battle they reverted to impersonal names.

He gave a stiff nod. "Gonna pick me up Stark or should I start stretching?”

“I’m a little busy right now. Thor?”

“On my way.”

“Okay,” Steve said. “Once Banner is here, we need to work on getting that scepter so we can close the portal.”

"Thor, did your brother drop it on the Tower again?”

“Nope. He blasted me off of it with it, though.”

“I think he dropped it when I blew him out of the sky,” Clint said. “In the original timeline.”

Nat rolled her neck. "Good enough. Who wants to hijack an alien speeder with me?"

"Me me me," Sharon replied.

“What, are you going to bait him to chase you?” Steve asked.

Nat squinted, watching the aliens buzz over their heads. "Last time it was the most efficient way."

"I want to shoot the other ones down," Sharon admitted.

"So if we each hop on one, maybe we can take him down.”

Thor landed behind her to collect Clint. “You need a lift, too?”

“Hang on,” Tony called. “Jet coming in.”

It came down low - though not as low as Clint would have gotten it - and the back opened. Bruce spotted them, then jumped, changing to the Hulk in mid air.

He landed with a thud beside them. "Smash aliens."

"Ladies and gentleman, we have a Hulk.”

Hulk roared, sounding more excited than angry, and Nat had a moment to recall just how terrifying he’d been five years ago, and how far they’d all come.

“Okay,” Tony said. “Bringing Falcor to you. Brace yourselves.”

A few minutes later, he banked around a corner, followed by one of those awful alien dragon things. Hulk roared again and promptly flung himself at it. It exploded in a hail if rockets, just like it had the first time. It was an odd moment of deja vu, though this time Thor shielded her instead of Steve.

"Today is a strange day," she commented when they stood up again. "Get Clint up high. I'll go find the others and figure out scepter strategy.”

Clint gave her a little salute, and off he went. Nat jogged over to find Steve and Sharon and the ground fight they were having. For a bit everyone was just consumed by the battle they were in. Then Amanda’s voice came over the comm. “I have an idea.”

"Is is violent?" Tony asked.

Well his mood had improved. "Will it get this over with?”

“To get the scepter. The gas in the Tower’s fire suppression systems is toxic to Asgardians. If you flood all the tanks into the penthouse, you’ll probably knock him out.”

They were all quiet a moment. "I love when Doc gets super villainy," Tony finally said.

"Do it," Steve said.

The sky darkened and Nat looked up. Thor was on top of the Chrysler Building, flooding the portal with lighting. The better grip future-him had on his powers seemed to have come back with him, as it was much more effective than it had been the first time.

“You people are too slow.” Nat was surprised to hear Bruce’s voice. “I got the stick.”

Another beat of silence. "How?" Amanda finally asked.

“Hulk remembered beating him up last time. Climbed the tower, smacked Loki around, now he’s embedded in the floor whining and I have the stick. Puny God and all. Can someone come get this thing, Hulk wants to come back out and smash more aliens.”

"Can I go?" Clint asked. "I owe him a couple arrows.”

“Hey, I have no object-” Tony started talking, and then cut off. Apparently listening to a different transmission. “Are you fucking kidding me? I specifically said _no nuke_.”

"Are they still sending the nuke?" Amanda asked, voice showing emotion for the first time.

Nat was going to worry about that later. "Clint, I'll meet you at the Tower. I should get in place to shut the portal down.”

“The elevators are still working,” Tony said. “You should just be able to go up. I have to go deal with the. . .fuck.” He sounded about as rattled as Nat had ever heard him.

"Stark," Steve said, a little concern under the Cap voice. "What can we do to help you?”

“Absolutely fucking nothing. Thor might fry it and nobody else can fly.” He took two very audible, forceful breaths, and then sounded like his usual self again. “Whatever. It’s fine. I’m Iron Man. If I don’t come back this time, tell Ruby the good stories.”

Nat looked over at Steve and Sharon, feeling helpless. Then Amanda's voice came over the comm. "If you don't come back I'll cobble together one of your suits and come get you. Good luck and don't fuck up."

Tony actually chuckled. "Love you too, Doc.”

Nat took off at a run towards the tower. The elevators were, in fact, still working. She got out on the penthouse floor, to find Hulk was back, sullenly sitting on Loki. He must have tried to get up. She waved and took the scepter, taking the access stairs up to the roof. She had a brief tussle with Dr. Selvig, who hadn’t had his head conked in this timeline, apparently. Thankfully, a tap with the scepter fixed him right up.

Below her, she saw Hulk leap out to start pummeling aliens again. Above, Tony flew past, heading to meet the nuke on the way. She tightened her grip on the scepter and waited.

It all had a horrible deja vu to it, watching Tony fly into the portal, then holding her breath waiting for him to come back out.


	4. Chapter 4

The portal was the same. The same as his memory, the same as his nightmares. Same yawning abyss, same vast army, same blinding explosion. The first time, he’d tried to call Pepper and failed. This time she answered. Ruby was in the middle of a temper tantrum, and crying baby was the last thing he heard as the signal went, and then the air. This suit wasn’t space-worthy.

Mumbled voices drifted in.

“. . .but what do we. . .”

“. . .last time I think. . .”

“. . .could even do CPR around the arc reactor anyway. . .”

“. . .about that giant needle. . .”

“. . .electrocuted corpse. . .”

“Everyone who didn’t go to medical school, shut up.” There was Doc’s voice, clear as a bell.

There was a sharp pain in his arm and something covered his mouth. Then cool air against his face. He took a couple deep breaths of that and opened his eyes.

Doc was kneeling next to him, watching her watch as she held her fingers against his throat. The rest of them were hovering behind her in a ring, looking nervous. She saw him looking and the corner of her mouth lifted. "Just so you know, I hate schwarma.”

Tony coughed, and laughed. “I’ll buy you some falafel.” There was an oxygen mask on his face, so he didn’t know how audible that was. He tried to sit up but couldn’t move. He hoped because the suit was off and not because he’d broke his neck.

"You're strapped to a back board, stay still." He made a face at her. "Yes, I know. Actual competent medical help is very inconvenient. JARVIS is running a couple scans for me and I'll let you up."

"Did we win?" he asked, since he was stuck there.

"Yes." That was Steve. "With a lot less damage to the city, as far as I can tell.”

“Can someone call Pepper and tell her I’m not dead? We were on the line when I went up there.”

"I talked to her," Nat said. "She headed up to Connecticut to get Violet and the kids.”

“Good. We need to regroup and figure out what to do about those stones.”

"Violet said we could go up there, if we wanted. She has a big house with several guest rooms."

Doc was apparently satisfied and started unfastening the back board. "And you need to build me a suit so we can go get James.”

“Absolutely.” He sat up slowly. “I still have that hotel uptown. The one we went to the first time. I don’t want to take Loki to Connecticut, nor do I want to leave him here.”

Nat nodded. "Sounds good. I'll let Pepper know."

Doc didn't let him stand up until she'd checked his pupils. Then she personally helped him to his feet. “Don’t punch me,” he said, and then he hugged her.

She hugged him back, surprisingly tightly. "Good to see you, Tony.”

“We’ll find him, Doc. I promise.”

She nodded and took a deep breath before leaning back and giving him a fierce smile. "I look forward to it.”

The first time, they left the scepter, tesseract, and the portal machine in the custody of SHIELD. This time, no one was taking any chances. They packed everything up and took it uptown with them. Fury would be mad, but none of them were big fans of SHIELD right now. There were some very messy things on the Later list.

He had no idea how far out Pepper was, so he sent a couple of bell hops out to buy clothes and toiletries for everyone and then got them their room assignments.

"Does anyone need me to look at them," Doc asked in the elevator.

There was a chorus of No’s, and Barton added, “I didn’t even go through the window this time.”

“I did,” Tony said. “Pepper had to pick glass out of my scalp last time.”

"Do you want me to pick glass out of your scalp?" she asked.

“Considering she’s not here, probably, yeah. I don’t want Ruby getting into it or anything. I promise to whine less than last time.”

She rode up to the penthouse with him and had him head into the bathroom and sit on the edge of the tub while she dug out tweezers and a magnifying eyepiece from her bag. "As surgeries go," she said while standing behind him in the tub. "This is the most benign one I could hope for on a day like this.”

“Today went better than the first time. I think.”

"From what I've heard it sounds like it. Less casualties, less damage. You guys are all certainly in better shape.”

“We know each other. How to work together, how to fight together. We’re pretty good at it. Would have been nice not to go into the portal, though.”

"You want to talk about it?" she asked quietly.

“I don’t know. Last time it made me crazy. I made 42 suits and had panic attacks and almost got Pepper killed.” He rubbed his eyes. “I’d like to get home before I have to deal with Aldrich Killian again.”

She was quiet a moment, the only sound in the room the occasional clink of glass in the little dish she was putting them in. Finally, she said, "Tony. Do you really think we're going home?”

He rapped his knuckles on the side of the tub gently, mostly to fill the silence. “Maybe after we destroy one of the stones, Strange will show up and get us.” He didn’t sound all that believable to his own ears. He could tell she didn’t buy it either. So instead he voiced what he’d been thinking about all day. “We’ve probably already altered the timeline enough that it won’t be there. And once we’ve destroyed the stone, the future Strange came from will no longer exist. Even if ours does.”

"That's what I assumed. I've read enough science fiction to know about alternate timelines." She put her tweezers down and ruffled his hair gently. "We saved lives, but that means people who were dead are now alive. We're going to tell Fury about Hydra and rescue James. Thor and Jane know about the Convergence. You know about Killian. We're just going to keep stepping on butterflies until anything resembling our timeline is gone. There's nothing to go back to.”

“If. . . So, I don’t understand how Ruby came with us, but I’m grateful. But if we step on the butterfly that lead to her existence in our timeline. . .” He couldn’t even bring himself to say it out loud, the thought was so horrifying. 

“Ruby already existed in 2012. Technically. She’s already been conceived. Female Blastocyst number 4 is in a cryo tank in a Los Angeles fertility center, I believe.”

He turned around to stare at her. "Holy shit, I forgot about that."

Doc shrugged. "I think she's stuck here and will grow up normally. Though, if you and Pepper decide to start having kids again, we should skip that embryo.”

Outside in the suite, he heard the door open, and Pepper’s voice. “Tony?”

"In here," he called, then glanced up at Doc. "Don't say anything for right now."

She snapped her gloves off. "We'll put it under doctor patient privilege.”

Pepper came in, Ruby on her hip. “Hi,” she said, a wealth of emotion in that single syllable.

"Hey there." He stood and wrapped his arms around both of them. "Crazy day, huh?”

*

A long hot shower improved Bruce's mood tremendously. He still felt rather discombobulated, but he was in far less pain than he'd been after the original Battle of New York. And somewhere in the back of his mind, Hulk was preening like a contented cat.

A bellhop had brought him clothes and he'd just gotten dressed and was wondering what to do with himself when the door opened. He startled, expecting one of the team, but instead there was Violet, with long hair down to her waist, a baby strapped to her chest in a carrier and a luggage cart full of bags, baby gear, and a blonde toddler dragging behind her.

Her hair had been up on their video call and he’d had no idea how long it was. It was gorgeous. And also, he’d never been so glad to see her in his life. He crossed to the room so he could hug her, and Neil squawked in protest between them.

"Hi," she said, sounding relieved and tired and a little exasperated all in one. "I forgot how exhausting a baby and toddler were. And how much _stuff_ they require.”

“I see that. Let me help.” He took the bag from her and helped get the stuff on the cart. “I don’t have any money on me,” he said to the bell hop in apology. “I’ll have Mr. Stark put it in your check.”

When the man left, he felt a tug on his pant leg and turned look down at a very small Ada staring up at him. “Hi, sweetheart.”

She stared at him a moment, then asked, “Who are you?” Which felt a bit like someone hit him.

Violet smoothed a hand over Ada's hair. "This is Mama's friend Bruce, baby. Remember? I told you we were going to come visit.”

“Do you have cookies?”

He grinned at her. “I don’t, but we’re going to go have some dinner with my friends in a bit, and I can make sure they have cookies.”

She smiled in the way that was very familiar. "Okay." She looked at Violet. "Can I color?"

She pointed to the cart. "Find your purple backpack, it's all in there." Ada pounced on the cart while Violet carried Neil over to the bed to unstrap him.

Bruce followed. “They’re so little,” he whispered. He sat on the bed next to where she’d laid Neil down and reached to touch his tiny hands.

"They are." Neil wrapped his fist around Bruce's finger and Violet squeaked, sitting next to him and resting her head on his shoulder.

He picked the baby up, tucking him against his other shoulder. “Hi, Buddy.”

Neil yawned and gurgled, squirming against him to get comfy.

Violet lifted a hand to rub the baby's back. "You are so hot right now.”

“Babies, huh? That’s what does it for you?” But he understood. Violet wasn’t really one to complain, but whenever she'd spoken about the first year of Neil’s life she, no matter how simply she phrased it, you could always hear the subtext. An already brutal infancy, full of colic, sleep problems, and projectile vomiting…only alone, and drowning in grief. She’d been dumped back into the worst time in her life. At least now she had a partner in it. Someone else for Neil to spit up on.

Which he was coincidentally doing right at that moment.

Sighing, Violet got up. "Pepper and I stopped and got you guys some clothes.”

“Tony sent someone out for clothes, as well. Take him, I’ll go change my shirt.” He kissed her. “I’m sorry you got sucked into this, and but so happy you are here.”

"So am I. I wouldn't have wanted to get left behind.”

He peeled off his shirt and found a clean one. “I love your hair, by the way.”

"Hmm?" She was dancing Neil around and did a cute little pirouette to look at her hair. "Oh, yeah. He gets into a hair pulling phase at around 20 months and I had to cut it.”

“Well, I will enjoy it while I can.”

She watched him button up his new shirt. "Are we stuck here? In this time?”

Bruce looked down at his buttons. He’d been thinking about it all day, while Hulk was smashing. It was probably worth discussing with the rest of Team Science, but he’d bet anything Tony and Jane had come around to the same unavoidable conclusion. “I. . . you know, temporal mechanics isn’t really my field. . .”

She added and sighed, as if he'd answered the question. "Hal really liked sci fi. You alter the time line and the world changes.”

“Pretty much, yeah.”

Another sigh. "Well. It's not ideal. But I won't say I _mind_ another shot at raising my kids. Now with support and resources.”

He rubbed his forehead. “How are you going to explain me to your family?” He looked over at Ada, happily coloring away. “How long long has. . ?”

"About two months. I had a small panic attack when I woke up and saw all his things in the house.”

“God. I’m so sorry.”

She nodded and stepped close again to lean on his side. "I was very relieved when Pepper called.”

He hugged her. “This is probably going to be. . . very awkward. But we’ll figure it out. Raise the kids together.”

"I look forward to that. Ada will get the education and stimulation she needs. And Neil's toddler years will be way less frustrating than the first time.”

“Sounds like a plan.” He inclined his head. “How about we go see if dinner is ready upstairs?”

"Yes. I'm breastfeeding and _starving_. Ada, baby, pack up your stuff, let's go get some food.”

He looked down almost involuntarily. “Wow, they are bigger, aren’t they?”

She laughed. "Yes. They are. By a lot.”

*

Darcy had been on an airplane for 12 hours. Her body, the one she was currently apparently inhabiting, had been on it for more than that, but she’d popped in during the middle of the flight to Norway, where they got off, and immediately got back on.

She was grateful she and Jane were literally looking at each other when they arrived in the past, so they could immediately start talking over each other, and mildly freak out together.

Later she’d learn the rest of them had spent at least some part of the day under the impression that they’d be returning to the future when this was over. Jane disabused her of that notion before they’d even gotten to Norway.

They spent the flight back to the US watching the battle on TV. 

“I remember watching this the first time,” Jane said.

Darcy remembered, too. Jane had been so happy Thor had figured out how to get back to Earth. Then when it became obvious he’d gone back to Asgard without so much as contacting her. . . that had been a bad time.

"I swear it's going faster this time," she said. "Hulk is tearing through them."

"Well, they know what they're doing this time."

"True." It was crazy to think that this had been their first battle as a team. It was a miracle they'd made it through. "I hope someone thought to call Cal.”

“Was he at SHIELD yet?”

"Yeah, he went in right out of college. He was, like, the guy who went and made sure your printer was plugged in correctly.”

“I’m sure he’s okay,” Jane said. “Pepper said she was trying to get everyone accounted for.”

"That's good." She trusted Pepper not to forget about him. "So we basically just have to live the next five years over again?”

“Yeah. Only. . . probably a lot differently.” She leaned back in her seat and sighed. “Things we can do differently. Things we can stop. I’d love to not be possessed and almost die, for example. And not being responsible for. . .” She sat up. “God. Thor’s mother is still alive. I wonder if he’s realized that yet.”

Darcy sucked in a breath. "Cal doesn't have to get pinned under a building.”

Jane spread her hands out. “There are some real advantages to a do-over.”

"We need to make a list of all the bullshit that's happened and start planning alternatives.”

The pilot came over the intercom. “Ladies, we’re starting our descent. I’ve been told there’s going to be a car waiting for you.”

"Hey we get to start getting used to the Stark lifestyle a few years early.”

They landed at a private airport, the kind where you could drive onto the tarmac. The plane pulled right up to a black SUV. Leaning against the hood, with startlingly short hair and facial hair she hadn’t know he’d ever had, was Cal.

Darcy shrieked and sprinted the last few feet and flung herself at him. "Oh my God what is your hair?!”

He hugged her tightly. “It was a phase.”

"I'm glad someone remembered you." She leaned back and kissed him. "Thanks for picking us up.”

“Not at all a problem.” He grinned at her. “I can’t even tell you how great I feel.”

"I loved you as you were. But I am totally looking forward to no-back-pain sex.”

He kissed her temple, and ushered them into the SUV.

"So how is everyone?" Jane asked once they were on their way.

“They seem fine,” he replied. “Doing their post-mission decompress. We’re all at a fancy hotel. They’ve got everyone meeting for dinner to discuss. . . everything. I’m hoping we’ll get there in time.” 

"I do like being part of strategy sessions," Darcy said. "I think outside the box.”

He stared out at the road. “Do you think we’re going back?”

Jane threw her a look, but Darcy knew him well enough to know he'd want the truth. "Jane doesn't think there's a back to go to. Once we came here and changed our original actions, that future stopped existing. Plus if we succeed in destroying the tesseract, the future the wizard dude was from will never exist so he'll never go back to send us. So we're basically in a whole new timeline now and have to live it out.”

“Okay,” he said. “But I’m going to quit my job before Cap drops a building on me.”

"I'm really hoping we can skip that part.”


	5. Chapter 5

“We could blast it with the scepter. I’m pretty sure that’s what Strange was talking about.”

Thor, Tony, and Steve were debating the fate of the stones in the living room of Tony and Pepper’s massive suite on the top of the hotel. Amanda was listening with half an ear. She, Nat and Sharon had staked out space in the dining room and were trying to figure out where Hydra’s hidden Siberian bunkers were. Siberia was very big.

Thor was starting to sound irritated. “Yes. But. If we destroy the Tesseract, we will never be able to restore the Bifrost. It is the energy from which the Bifrost was built. The consequences of Asgard not being able to keep the realms in order could be severe. There’s already chaos I’m going to have to go deal with.”

“How about we destroy the stone in the scepter?” Steve asked.

“Aren’t we going to need that later?” Tony replied

“To do _what_?” Thor again. “Are you going to make another Ultron? Did you not learn your lesson about messing with cosmic powers you barely understand?”

“Boys, don’t fight,” Nat called out.

Sharon was frowning at her computer screen. “Man, they’ve got this stuff really well hidden. These are Director level access codes and they can’t override.”

“They probably deliberately blocked Peggy out,” Nat said. “I get the sense she was the kind to go digging if something off caught her attention.”

Sharon laughed. “Uh, yeah.”

There was a commotion in the living room, and Amanda looked up to see Cal had finally gotten back with Darcy and Jane. Jane would probably at least help moderate the tone of the stone disposition debate. “Sorry,” Cal said. “Traffic was a nightmare.”

The other two got up to go give hugs, but Amanda stayed with her research, not up for the commotion. She was trying not to be a downer, everyone was struggling with something. But Jane and Darcy made the last of the couples to be reunited, except for her. It was hard not to be bothered by that.

James was somewhere in a cryo tube, in Hydra control. She needed to find him and everything that delayed that rankled her.

Nat and Sharon returned to glare at Sharon’s laptop screen. Cal came into the dining room doorway. “Jane ordered me to come see if you needed help with your ‘computer things’. I am not even remotely anything near a hacker, but I promised I’d ask. Though if you can pry Stark away from the metaphysics over there, he might be useful.”

"I need someone with Director level status to decrypt some of these things," Amanda said. "But if we tell Fury what we're looking for it'll open a huge can of worms we're not prepared to deal with." She sighed and covered her eyes with her hands, pressing hard enough to see spots. "I read every single Winter Soldier file from the data dump dozens of times. Why can't I find anything useful?”

“What are you looking for?”

"The facility James is being kept in. I know it was in Siberia. I know it was built during the Cold War. And I know it had underground levels.”

He came around behind Sharon. “Can I sit for a minute?”

She moved away. “What are you looking for?”

“Uh, every year every department at SHIELD has to report on all its physical inventory. Something about capital asset depreciation or. . . something.” He typed for a minute. “It’s a shit task, the kind of thing you make interns do. Or newbies. Counting servers.” He looked up. “If you infest something, like a parasite, you use its infrastructure. You don’t build out your own network. Compartmentalizing means the guys who know where the equipment is will never know what’s on it, so what does it matter, right?”

Amanda looked at him. "So you find a random facility in Siberia with way too many servers.”

“Pretty much, yeah.” When she leaned over she could see him scrolling through what looked like an excel spreadsheet. “Or something incongruous. This one, for example.” He pointed to the screen. “Volochanka. It’s listed as radioactive waste storage facility, with a triple redundant comms system installed. It has three satellite dishes. For the comparison, Helicarriers only have two. What the hell are they doing up there that needs that kind of guaranteed uptime?”

She peered at the location, then brought up a satellite image on her computer. After a little fiddling she was able to get a decent look at the building and the land around it. It clearly got more traffic than a waste storage facility should have. She could also see a couple spots where there was no snow, probably hot spots from underground equipment.

"That's it," she said softly. Then, loud enough for the others to hear, "We found him.”

The conversation stopped, and Steve materialized beside her. “Are you sure that’s it?”

She pointed out the melted snow and tire tracks, and told him what Cal had figured out. "Something sketchy is going on there. If it's not James then it's someone who will know where he is.”

“That checks out,” Steve said. “Okay,” he said, voice louder. “Everyone in the living room so we can figure this out.”

They dragged their computers and maps into the other room and sat down. Tony fiddled a minute and got the image projected up on a wall. "Wow that is the middle of nowhere."

"They're going to see us coming from a mile away," Nat said. 

“We want to do this without tipping Hydra off that we’re on to them,” Steve said, “I want him safe before we tackle that. All hell may break loose.”

Amanda nodded. "I agree. There's a non zero chance they'll wake him up to take care of us if they think we're a threat.”

“Is there a procedure for waking him? Do you know it?”

"If I was in front of the machine I could do it, yeah." She tilted her head. "Come to think of it. . . I think I could talk my way in.”

Everyone looked at her. “Wait, what?” Sharon asked.

"I've read those files so many times I have them memorized. I know their project names, some of his trigger phrases. I could probably convince whoever is stationed there that I've been recruited as a doctor." Now that she was thinking about it, she was warming to the idea. "I would have been a good target. Even in this time I knew more about the serum than anyone else.”

“That is. . . unbelievably dangerous,” Tony said.

She spread her hands. "Is there a safe and fuzzy way to do this?”

“No, but there’s a way where you’re in a titanium suit and not a lab coat.”

“I’ll go with her,” Clint said. Heads turned, and he added, “Right now there isn’t a single person in SHIELD who wouldn’t believe I’d turned.”

Amanda gestured to him. "I feel better already. All I have to do is get to James. And if we do it now, the odds are good it'll be low level agents and no handlers or specialists.”

“All right,” Steve said. “Everyone not going to Siberia is going to California. Along with the equipment and the stone.”

“Jane and I will reconfigure Selvig’s device to open a portal to Asgard so Thor can take his brother back for his father to deal with,” Tony said. “The rest of you can stay at my house—I have 11 bedrooms—while we figure out what to do next.”

"When do we leave?" Amanda asked.

*

The first sensation was always cold. The last was cold, too, which gave him the sense that the world was always cold. Then he could smell, but the air was always the same. Taste. His mouth always tasted terrible. Then he could hear, different voices in different languages. Hissing and clanking and beeping.

Memories stirred, but there were so many the same. So many wake ups that had all been the same. The electricity and pain. The mission. Always a mission.

He knew if he opened his eyes, he’d be able to see now. But he didn’t want to. The longer he kept his eyes closed, the longer he didn’t have to wake up.

There were no voices, not that he could hear anyway. And in addition to the scents of metal and damp and disinfectant he caught something that smelled like flowers.  
"James," a woman said. "Wake up, honey.”

He remembered another wake up. He hadn’t been in the tank. He’d been in a bed. There was knit blanket on it. And she’d smelled just like that. She didn’t have a mission. She had peace. And safety.

He opened his eyes just for her.

There she was, younger than he'd pictured, a look of concern on her face. When she saw his eyes open, she smiled and looked beautiful. "There you are. You know who I am?”

“The most beautiful women in the world.” But she frowned and looked worried instead of smiling, and he realized he had said it in Russian. _English, Barnes, you know English_. He also knew her name. “Manda.”

She sagged in relief and hugged him. “Jamie."

It didn’t make any sense that she was waking him up from cryo. Why was she here? Why was he here? His memory was so foggy it was like soup. But he’d thought he was done with all this.

Someone cleared their throat and he was immediately on alert until he looked around and spotted Clint in the corner. It didn't make sense he was here, either, but it made him feel better to have another ally.

Amanda leaned back, keeping her hands on his shoulders. "I know everything is probably muddled right now, and I promise to explain. But right now I need you to pretend you're still the Soldier as we walk out of here.”

He could definitely manage that. He kissed her temple. “Got it.”

She got him a shirt, jacket, and a pair of boots to put on then he followed her out of the room. It was dark, the wall stone and unfinished, like most of the places he'd woken up from cryo. She seemed to know where she was going, so he kept his face blank and followed her close, Clint at his back.

They passed a few agents, who barely spared them a glance, then they got into an elevator that took them up a few levels to the jet hanger. They got onto a SHIELD jet. Wasn’t SHIELD gone?

He remained stone-faced until they were onboard. “Okay, seriously, what-” She didn’t let him finish the question, because she grabbed him by the jacket lapels and kissed him. He groaned and wrapped his arms around her, all but lifting her off the ground with the force of the kiss.

Amanda had never held him quite this tightly or tasted quite so desperate. He was starting to get worried about what had happened while he was in stasis, but couldn't quite bring himself to break the kiss and ask.

“Hey,” Clint was saying. “I absolutely get what’s going on right now. No judgement. Had sex in a helicarrier bathroom during the original timeline’s Battle of New York, so I get it. . . but I really need to take off.”

That got James to break the kiss. “Wait, timeline?” 

"Sit," Amanda said, shoving him into a seat and plopping down next to him. They hadn't even fastened belts before Clint had them cruising out of the hanger.

"We're back in 2012," she told him. "Do you remember the party in the Tower? The guy with the portals?”

He shook his head. “The freezing affects my short term memory. I don’t always remember things right before going under. Details anyway. I think I remember some of the party, though. You were drunk?”

"A tiny bit, yes. A man calling himself Strange appeared and told us we had to go back in time to destroy the Tesseract. And apparently we've done just that. We all appeared here in our bodies from 2012. Ruby came too, though she's still her.”

That was. . . a lot to process. “How did you find me?”

"I knew you were in Siberia, Cal found a location with incongruous technology. I talked myself and Clint in. Told them I was taking you for treatment before your next mission.”

He grinned. “God, I love you. You are the most brilliant woman who ever existed.”

She laughed, but it sounded more tired than amused. She leaned over and rested her head on his shoulder. "I'm so glad to see you.”

He put his arm around her. “Did you destroy it? The Tesseract?”

"Not yet. They were working on that when we left to get you. I had other priorities.”

“Are we stuck here?”

"The consensus among the smart people is yes.”

“Jesus.” He rubbed his brow. “I don’t know that my brain is online enough for this.”

"It's okay. We're heading to Tony's house in California while we sort everything out. You have time to sort yourself out, too.”

“Huh. I guess there’s no tower yet. Where’s Steve? Is he okay?”

“He’s in California,” Clint called. “When we get out of Russian airspace I promised him I’d have you call.”

"Everyone's okay. You were the last one we gathered up.”

He nodded. And realized he was absolutely starving. They never fed him enough when he was the soldier. Not for the work he did or the muscle mass he carried or what he now knew was metabolism that ran 4 times faster than your average person. He was always, always hungry. “Got anything to eat?”

"Are MREs okay?" she asked, lifting her head.

“I could seriously eat cardboard.”

She kissed his cheek and stood, rummaging in her bags and bringing out a few boxes. He tore one open and stated eating while she got next open.

They were cold. And gross. But somehow also very delicious.

By the time he finished the third one, Amanda was dozing on his shoulder. He got her to lay down on one of the pull down cots, tucking her in before heading up to the cockpit and sitting with Clint.

They flew in silence for a while before Bucky asked, "How are you holding up?”

“Got a replay of being under Loki’s spell.”

He nodded. "From what 'Manda said, we got dropped into the worst day of your life.”

“Yep. Right at the worst part, too. I had to have a knife fight with my wife. Didn’t get any easier the second time.”

"I'm sure it didn't." He was quiet. "If she hadn't been there when I woke up I'm pretty sure I'd have thought the last couple years were a dream.”

“I had a moment I thought it was happening again. There was a wizard and green light and then I wasn’t in control of my body.” He shuddered visibly.

"Nightmares come back?”

He hesitated, and then a single nod. “May just do my best not to sleep long enough for REM for a bit.”

Bucky nodded again. "Yeah." He wondered if the rest of them had noticed Clint was having a shitty time. Nat probably had. They had a good rapport. "What do you think of being stuck here? Starting over?”

“There’s something to be said for knowing how things will go. I was in Australia when they took SHIELD down. Still trying to sort out my head. I have a lot of regrets about that.”

"It will be nice to be a part of that. Rather than an unwilling adversary." He looked down at the ocean beneath them. "If you ever need someone to go for a midnight run with, you know to come find me, right?”

“Yeah, I do, man,” he said, just as quiet. “All of that shitty stuff, all of it, will be easier to face with all of us together.”

He glanced behind him at Amanda sleeping peacefully. "Yeah. I think it will.”


	6. Chapter 6

They flew on one of the big Stark Industries jets out to California. Tony complained about having to go to the airport. The apparent regression in technology seemed to bother him a lot. Steve really couldn’t tell. Though it didn’t seem as fantastical as it had in the first 2012—though that hadn’t been a high bar for a man two weeks out of the 1940s.

When they arrived, Pepper’s assistant and Darcy took up the task of getting everyone assigned rooms. They took up 9 of the 11 bedrooms Tony had mentioned. Thor took Loki down to one of the stone-walled wine cellars for safekeeping, and Team Science took the portal generator to Tony’s lab to figure out how to recalibrate it. Supplies for everyone had been ordered from the plane, and Steve carried the boxes and crates that had been waiting for them to rooms all over the house. He and Cal assembled two cribs, two changing tables, and a toddler bed. Then Cal got called up to the roof to run cabling for the portal machine, and Steve got drafted into helping Pepper and Violet with childproofing this deeply not-kid-friendly house.

It kept him busy. If he was busy, he didn’t have to worry about Bucky.

They were almost finished making the informal living room into a 100% safe play room, when Sharon poked her head in. "You guys want some lunch?”

“Is that what meal it is?” Steve asked. There had been a lot of timezones. And, you know, time travel.

"Close enough. Darcy and I decided to order in. We have several types of Asian food, plus pizza and pasta.”

“California pizza is shit.” 2012 Steve hadn’t know that yet, but 2017 Steve did. “Otherwise I’ll take a scoop of everything.”

Sharon leaned back out and he heard her yell back to Darcy, "Told you he'd diss the pizza.”

He stood up and went over to her. Just because he wanted to put his arms around her. “Hi.”

"Hi," she said softly. "How are you doing?”

“Ah, I feel a little like I have whiplash.” He rubbed his eyes. “And I keep thinking about all these little things. I’m going to have to explain my survival and the ice to Peggy again. Sam Wilson has no idea who I am. Barnabas.” 

She gave him a little squeeze. "I know. It's weird and destabilizing. But there's also a lot of bad stuff we can fix. and fun stuff we can do over again." She kissed him. "And we can find Barnabas again.”

“I was going to ask how you were doing, but it sounds like pretty okay.”

"Oh, don't get me wrong, this is all scary as shit. I'm constantly tripping over things that haven't happened yet, Aunt Peggy dying, we'll have to explain you to my family again, all the world changing stuff. But we're all together and we're a good team. If I have to have a do over on the last half decade, there's no one I'd rather do it with than these idiots.”

He laughed a little. “That is entirely true.”

She stroked his cheek. "I love you. I kind of like having a few extra years with you.”

“I guess we do, don’t we? We’re younger now.”

"We're younger than we were when I was Kate across the hall.”

He sighed a little, something occurring to him. “Probably would be awkward to get married in two months, wouldn’t it?”

"Probably, yeah. Especially because we don't have any of our reservations still.”

“I was just. . . looking forward to that.”

"Me too." She tucked her head under his chin. "We'll get there.”

“Come on, let’s go get some food.”

She stepped back and grinned. "I'm eating that pizza.”

“Because you’re a heathen and also from Virginia.” He followed her into the kitchen. Thor was in the middle of consuming an entire pie. They were all heathens.

“So we think it’s almost ready,” Thor said, pointing at the ceiling. “I’m going to take Loki back, probably have a loud argument with my father over the tesseract, see my mother again.” His voice caught a little on the last bit. Steve knew in the original timeline, his mother had died. “And then I will be back. Jane thinks we need to leave the portal open until I return.”

“That’s. . . gonna get some attention.”

"Who do you call to get permission to open a portal to another realm?" Darcy wondered aloud.

“Call Rhodes. He knows people in high places. And Fury,” Sharon said. “Warning SHIELD and the US Military will get us some time.”

“Press attention can’t be helped,” Steve added. “Though I think the LA media is pretty inured to weird things happening at this house.” 

"I'll call Fury," Nat said. "But he's going to want some answers and I'm not sure we're ready to open that can of worms yet.”

“Tell him our priority is getting Loki off this planet, and then we will debrief him afterwards.”

"Got it. Tell Stark to call Rhodey when he comes up.”

Steve sat down to actually eat his food. “I’ll feel better when he’s gone,” he said to Thor. “No offense.”

“Yesterday, my mother and brother were dead. Now they’re not. I’m hard to offend today.”

Sharon sat next to him and snapped her chopsticks apart. "I guess you did come out of this with a net positive.”

“I think a great many lives can be saved, including theirs. If we have to live these years over, let’s do it better.” He paused. “I am also 1500 years old. The scale is different.”

"I guess it is kind of like going back to last month for you.”

“I do feel like time passes faster than it seems to for Jane and the rest of you.”

Darcy waved an excited hand as she finished chewing. "Mm. Doc explained it once. Something about the longer you live the faster time passes for you since it's a smaller percentage of your life. Like to a ten year old a year is ten percent of their life but to a fifty year old it's two percent.”

“And 1/1500 for him,” Steve said. “My life doesn’t feel as long as it was, though I was frozen for most of that.”

"I don't think you can count the frozen years," Sharon told him.

The sliding glass door to the deck opened, and Tony came in. He frowned at the pizza. “I can’t believe you’re eating that crap.” He stole one of Steve’s potstickers. “We’re almost ready.”

"Call Rhodey and warn him you're doing this," Sharon said. "Nat's already talking to Fury.”

“I should have him come out here so I can explain the time travel thing. But I’ll start with this.”

Nat came back into the room. "Once you've given him the head's up we're good to go. Though Fury sure would like to come out here and ask us a whole lot of questions.”

“I don’t doubt that for one second,” Tony said.

“We get our stories straight before we talk to him,” Steve said. “United front.”

"Agreed." Several of the rest of them nodded.

"We should make a list," Darcy said. "Or a chart. Of all the shit you guys dealt with, how it got fixed, root causes. Maybe some alternate plans. So you can decide what to tell him when. Might help clarify how the dominoes are going to fall, too.”

“Planning how to alter the future. Now I’ve seen it all,” Steve said.

Darcy pointed at him. “Ah-ah-ah! Do not say that. The last time I said that evil robots happened.”

Nat looked over at Stark. "Can we skip the evil robots this time? Please?”

He held up his hands. “Lesson learned. I’m going to go call Rhodey.”

She gave him a little salute as he left and looked over at Steve. "No word from the Siberia crew yet.”

Steve shook his head. “Not yet. They’re trying to stay silent until they’re well clear, though. Don’t want to raise any eyebrows.”

"I'm sure it's fine." She went to fix herself coffee. "It's just stressful. Waiting.”

Tony came back. “Okay. Lets blow a hole in the sky.”

They all went out on the deck to watch. Without the terror of the aliens, it was a very impressive sight. Thor said his goodbyes, then dragged his brother through the portal.

Steve stared up at it and sighed. “Good. More waiting.”

*

"How long are we staying here, Mama?"

Violet kissed Ada's head. "A bit longer honey. Do you like it here?"

She shrugged. "I has a lot of cool things. And Ruby is nice."

"Maybe tomorrow we can go down to the beach and look for shells, would you like that?"

Ada grinned widely. "And pretty rocks?"

"And pretty rocks." She kissed her again. "But for now, sleep."

She yawned widely and nodded. "Night Mama."

Violet turned on the night light and left, leaving the door slightly cracked. Tony's Malibu home was a little maze-like, and slightly different than the floor plan she was used to, since it hadn't been blown up by the Mandarin. She made her way down to the main living room where the rest of them had set up a standing white board and cork board and were trying to timeline all the crises the last few years.

When she’d left, to go through Ada’s complex bedtime routine, she’d left Neil with Bruce. It would be a _long_ time before her son slept anything approaching normally, but at three months this was pretty standard for any baby. He didn’t want to be put down, something that had been so unbelievably exhausting. She’d been grateful earlier to realize she had a second pair of arms now. In truth, she had many more. Right now Thor was standing in front of the board, rocking Neil draped over his forearm.

She mixed herself a drink and took a seat next to Bruce. "How far have we gotten?”

“They’re trying to decide if things that occurred chronologically before the fall of SHIELD need to be dealt with before they take SHIELD down.”

“I don’t think you guys are going to get that kind of time,” Bucky said. “They’re going to notice I’m missing.”

Amanda gestured with a her beer bottle. "It's possible destabilizing Hydra will help with some of the problems. Like, you don't think they had anything to do with Extremis and the Mandarin?”

“Huh.” Tony looked over at Pepper. “We ever look into where AIM’s funding was coming from?”

“You were busy having heart surgery and figuring out how to keep me from becoming the Human Torch.”

"Good point."

Waving her beer bottle again, Amanda added, "I still want that Extremis research, they had some good ideas."

"Except for the blowing up," Pepper reminded her.

"Except for that, yes.”

“Well, they’re already experimenting and blowing people up,” Tony said. “We just didn’t know about it yet.”

"So the research is there, we just need to get our hands on it."

Darcy drew a dotted line between Hydra and AIM on the board, then leaned back to study it. "Oh, what about the twins? Were they being experimented on by Hydra or someone else?”

“It was Hydra,” Clint said. “But they used the scepter, which they won’t get.”

"Right." She put them under the list of things that probably wouldn't happen the same way. "I need more alcohol, this hurts my head.”

“The convergence is going to to happen,” Jane said. “That has nothing to do with any of us, it just happened to happen during this time period.”

“It was helpful to have SHIELD during that time,” Thor said. “The clean up, anyway.”

“Civilian governments don’t know how to handle that level of epic weird,” Darcy said, opening the beer Cal had brought her. “Do we all have to fight that crazy elf guy?”

Thor looked at her for a long moment. “I think, given the warning, Asgard will be able to handle him. I have to talk to my father.”

"So we'll be ripping the sky open again?" Tony asked.

“I’m going to need to take the Tesseract home to rebuild the bifrost, too.”

"Have you guys settled that fight yet?" Amanda asked. "Are we destroying the scepter instead?”

“I think we have several years to decide that,” Thor said. “If they can even be destroyed.”

"Might be a good question for your parents," Nat suggested.

“I’d like some consensus before we give you one of the stones,” Tony said. “We don’t need Odin to stick it in his vault and say too bad.”

“The vault is very safe,” Thor said.

“Apparently not,” Darcy said. “I mean, if homicidal crazy guy got them at some point in the future.” 

Thor gave her a look but Neil started to fuss before he could respond. Violet stood to take him. "Wasn't the Aether a stone, too?" she asked as she resettled with him, shifting her shirt so Neil could nurse.

“It was a fluid gas/liquid. . . thing.” Jane said. Violet was impressed that even Jane couldn’t properly describe it. “But it can solidify into a stone.”

"We did theorize it worked as one of the Infinity stones, though," Thor said. "Which gives us another option for something to destroy.”

“I think the stone issue is a longer term problem,” Steve said. “SHIELD is the current one.”

“Agreed,” Tony said. “Also, I feel a little weird about the fact that I’ve now seen Violet’s boobs.”

She looked down, to see Neil had politely pulled half her shirt off. Pepper threw a crumpled up paper towel at Tony, and it bounced off his head. “Oh, shut up. Everyone in this room and half of Manhattan has seen mine.” Ruby didn’t do nursing covers.

Amanda leaned over to take his drink. “I’m cutting you off.”

“I avert my eyes,” Thor said, sounding remarkably prim and spawning a round of laughs.

Violet leaned her head back to look at him. "If you're horrified by this you'll love his toddler years when he shrieks 'boo' at the top of his lungs and yanks my shirt up."

"I missed so much," Bruce said fondly.

“We can’t take SHIELD down,” Nat said. “We need them. And with the time we have, I think we can save them.”

"Yeah," Amanda said, putting Tony's drink on the other side of herself. "I've lost all my research and have to start at square one. I sure would like SHEILD's resources to do that."

Steve shook his head. "It's still infected with Hydra."

"So we extract the cancer and let the healthy tissue thrive.”

“We do have a doctor this time,” Nat said. “In all seriousness, we have a much bigger and more complete team.”

"It will mean bringing Fury into the fold," Sharon said. "And Maria and Coulson, I assume.”

“It’s a good place to start,” Nat replied.

"Can I bring up a more practical point?" Darcy said. "Well, several, actually. How long are we camping out here? The Tower is an office building with no living space and most people's lives seem to be in DC.”

“We’ll do the repair and build-out on the tower,” Pepper said. “But it took a year the first time. In 2012, our lives are still here.”

“I’m living at an extended stay hotel,” Steve said. “In New York, though I moved right after the battle.”

“Our apartments are in DC,” Nat said.

"So is mine," Sharon said

Amanda nodded. "I have a townhouse outside of DC."

"I live with roommates," Cal added.

Violet shifted Neil to the other breast. "I have a big house in Connecticut."

Tony was frowning, leaning back in his chair. "I don't like the idea of us scattering to the winds.”

“I think most of us need to be in DC,” Sharon said. “If we’re dealing with SHIELD, that’s where the Trisk is. Head of the snake and all that.”

“So then we all go there together,” Steve said.

Tony turned to Pepper. "Who should we call about finding real estate in DC?”


	7. Chapter 7

Nat was awake in the morning when the sky started to lighten. Clint made a grumbling noise and put the pillow over his head. She got up and took a shower and went downstairs to see if anyone else was up. 

Dawn was apparently the Dad Shift. Bruce was asleep on the long circular couch, Neil sleeping on his chest. She found Tony in the kitchen, eating coffee beans out of the bag and blearily feeding Ruby bananas.

“I ran out of grinds and didn’t want to wake Neil.”

Nat opened the giant double-doored fridge and was happy to find some yogurt. “Thank you for making me grateful I was fixed.”

“At night Ruby either nurses to sleep, falls asleep on my chest in the rocker, or is in her babypod. There is no pod, no milk, and I have this stupid thing again.” He rapped his knuckles on the arc reactor. “It was a long night.”

Ruby flung a handful of mashed banana and it hit him on the side of the face. 

"The morning isn't looking great, either," he added.

She shook her head and took a bite of yogurt. "You could have seen if Violet would nurse her.”

“Seems like a weird thing to ask someone, doesn’t it?”

Nat shrugged. "Women have been doing it for centuries and still do in most countries. I bet she'd have been fine with it.”

Her phone beeped, and she pulled it out of her pocket. It was a secure SHIELD message. She’d sort of forgotten about them until right now. _Inbound. 45 min ETA. You people need to explain some stuff._

She sighed. "Fury's on his way," she told Tony. "I'll go wake up the crew."

He squinted, like he was personally blaming her for the intrusion. Then his shoulders slumped. "I'll start grinding."

Nat nodded and headed back to the hall where most of their bedrooms were. Steve and Sharon's room was first, so she knocked on it. Steve opened the door, looking like he was about to go for a run. "What’s up?”

"Fury is forty five minutes out and grumpy.”

He sighed. “Right. Is there coffee? Sharon will want it.”

"Tony's making it. I'm doing the wake up calls.”

She made the rounds in the hallway. The last person she woke was Clint, who replied, “I quit.”

Climbing into bed, she kissed him. "What will you do instead?”

He pulled her down. “Be a hired gun. Or your kept man, as the case may be.”

"Mmm, tempting." She tucked her arms around him. "I like living on Stark's dime, though.”

Clint sighed. “That is true. Okay. Up, up.”

She caught his hands and helped haul him to his feet. "Get dressed, I'll go make your coffee just how you like it." He gave her another fast kiss and she headed back out into the hall.

In the kitchen, several of the others had beaten her there. Amanda seemed to be trying to talk her husband out of drinking his coffee straight from the pot. And Violet was sitting at the table, nursing Neil and gently chiding Tony that _of course_ she'd be happy to feed Ruby. She had plenty of milk and a baby with a good latch would help her make more. Tony seemed to be getting more uncomfortable at every word, to the amusement of Bruce.  
Nat dodged around the boob conversation, took the coffee pot from Bucky and poured mugs for herself and Clint before handing the now empty pot back to him.

Bucky frowned at it. “Thank you, Natasha.” 

“Solved my problem,” Amanda replied.

She winked at Amanda and leaned on the counter to sip her coffee. Bucky frowned and started a new pot. “Steve went out to get food.”

"He did seem the most awake when I went around knocking.”

“I thought we were going to get everything sorted before we talked to Fury?” Amanda asked.

"We were," Nat said, digging out her phone to show her his message. "Fury was not in on that plan.”

“He’s good at not consulting people,” Clint said. He kissed the top of Nat’s head and went out into the living room. 

Darcy and Cal were the next to make an appearance, just as Steve returned with food. "Do you want me to hide the planning boards?" Darcy asked, seeming to aim the question between Steve and Tony.

They said, “Yes,” in unison, as good a sign as any in the universe that something was a good idea.

Steve unpacked the bagels. Violet came out into the living room and she and Pepper traded babies. Darcy and Cal carried the boards down the hall towards the bedrooms to find somewhere to stash them. By the time Fury came in they were all sprawled around the living room with their breakfasts, wearing their best innocent expressions.

He’d brought Maria Hill and Phil Coulson with him. It was so odd to see people that you knew well, and had known well in the past, but now everything was out of sync. “You seem to have grown in number,” he commented.

"We were all in the room when Strange came," Nat explained. "But yes, the team is pretty sprawling.”

“And you’re all Avengers?”

“Sometimes,” Sharon said, which made some of the other women chuckle.

"I'm the nanny," Violet offered, bouncing Ruby on her knee.

“We didn’t know there were children,” Coulson said.

“Her name is Violet Marsh,” Hill said. “She’s the one we called to calm the Hulk down.”

“Introductions might be helpful,” Steve said. He pointed starting from the far side of the room. “That is Darcy Lewis and Cal Bennet, they’re our administrative and technical support staff. Dr. Jane Foster, who I can’t remember if you know yet or not, our astrophysicist. Dr. Amanda Newbury, our medic. James Barnes—yes, that one, we’ll get to that. I know you know Sharon, she works as our government agency liaison. The small baby is Violet’s, the larger one is Tony’s. Which also requires explaining. You know everyone else.”

There was a beat, and then Fury pointed. “Who’s the little kid covered in shaving cream back there?”

"Dammit Ada," Violet muttered, handing Ruby over to Tony to go deal with her streaking daughter.

"She grows up to be a genius," Bruce told Fury.

“She yours?”

Bruce paused a moment, then said, “In a manner of speaking.”

“Okay,” he said, strolling over and sitting in the chair Violet had vacated. “I’m feeling like there are some big hole in the story you told about the future when we were all on the helicarrier.”

"Do you have questions?" Nat asked. "Or do you want us to try to fill in?”

“I think we should start from the top,” Steve said.

So they did, with Steve and Tony doing most of the talking. Of course, once they mentioned Hydra, the story ground to a halt.

“You can’t possibly be serious?” Fury sputtered. Hill and Coulson were issuing their own simultaneous protests. “You defeated them in the ’40’s.”

“Defeated doesn’t mean eradicated,” Nat said. “SHIELD brought Armin Zola over and gave him a job through Operation Paperclip. He grew Hydra within SHIELD, like a parasite. They’ll make their move about two years from now. You were already suspicious and looking into it by the time Steve and I found it. So they tried to have you killed. You’ve heard of the Winter Soldier, right?”

"He's a myth," Fury said.

At the same time, Coulson said, "He shot you a couple years ago.”

“I assure you, Director Fury,” Bucky said. “I am very real.”

That led to a rather lengthy tangent on him and how he was still alive which fortunately circled back to the Hydra thing in general and Pierce in particular.

Fury's brow was arched so high Nat was concerned he was going to sprain something. "You're telling me Alexander Pierce is the head of Hydra?"

"Yes," Steve told him seriously. "And in two years he's going to try to have you killed.”

“And then, uh, try to kill 20 million people,” Nat added. “Give or take.”

"He's also a real manipulative dick," Bucky finished.

He looked at all of them, and then back at Nat. “This is why I have trust issues.”

She smiled. "You're a very consistent man.”

“In our original timeline,” Steve said, “We had to destroy SHIELD to destroy Hydra. We flew a helicarrier into the Triskellion and dumped all of SHEILD’s files on the internet.”

"It's messy," Amanda said. "A lot of people get killed or hurt and the data dump destabilizes a lot of things. We want to figure out a way to get them out without all the fall out. The world needs a SHIELD, but not the cancer inside it.”

“Do you have some idea of who is Hydra and who is not?” Hill asked. “You can only cut out what you can find.”

"We could make you an incomplete list," Nat said. "Amanda knows a lot of the science ones. To start with, don't tell Sitwell anymore secrets.”

“Jasper Sitwell?” Coulson responded. “Really?”

“Oh, that does not surprise me at all,” Hill said.

“Right??” Sharon echoed from across the room.

“Am I missing something?” Fury asked.

“Some men just have a vibe to them,” Nat said. “You don’t know what specific _kind_ of creep they are, but they’re some kind. In the vast majority of cases, it’s pervert. Or they hit their wife. But occasionally, it’s something creative.”

"I wouldn't put him past being a pervert, too," Sharon said.

"Oh, totally," Hill agreed.

“It’s not a hundred percent,” Nat said, feeling a little like she was revealing state secrets. “Some men are good actors, like Pierce. Some like to cultivate that kind of reputation but don’t actually have the vibe.”

She gestured off to her left, and Tony said, “Was that directed at me?”

“I have never been more surprised a man didn’t put his hands on my ass in my life.”

“Well I’m not a creep,” he replied.

“Six hundred and forty three women can’t be wrong,” Bucky said.

“Oh my god I have gone ten years deliberately not knowing that number,” Pepper muttered. “Thanks.”

“Barnes, why do you remember that?” Tony asked.

“My memory for my life before I escaped sucks, but my memory for anything after is great.”

Fury started laughing. “I can’t believe it actually worked.” 

Nat arched a brow. "What actually worked?”

“The Avengers Initiative. The idea that this bizarre group of people could function together as a team. And you’re not just functioning—you’re like a seasoned military unit. I could see it in the way you fought. ”

There was a pause while they all exchanged glances. "Yes," Tony finally said. "It worked. But I don't know that you should be taking any credit for it. It took a lot of years, multiple crises, and forced proximity."

"Also alcohol," Bucky added. "The alcohol helps.”

“He did introduce some of us,” Nat said.

"That's how military units get seasoned, too." Fury waved a hand. “I don’t need credit. Just impressed my crazy notion turned out to be correct.” 

"And hey," Amanda said. "You get to skip the growing pains years and get the seasoned team from day one."

Nat nodded. "The original Battle of New York was a lot less streamlined.”

“Okay,” Coulson said. “You put together a list of people you know we can and can’t trust. What’s next?”

“If we’re going to do this from the inside,” Steve said. “It’s best everyone who works for SHIELD goes back to work for now. Lower level intel will be valuable. So we’re all going to come back to DC.”

Sharon groaned. "I'm not looking forward to being a paperwork monkey again.”

“Have you gotten over your fear of nepotism yet?” Fury asked. “You’re a Carter. I can promote you.”

She tilted her head. "This is about the time you promoted me to the field last time.”

“There we go.” He made a vague sign of the cross with his hand. “Consider it done.”

"Thank you.”

“I tell you all, I knew there was something fishy about that damn nuke.”

Sharon snapped her fingers. "That reminds me, there's a couple of senators on the dark side as well.”

“The vice president is evil, too,” Tony said. “Though he might not be Hydra.”

Pepper frowned. "I think that ended up being a blackmail thing.”

“You might be right.”

“One thing at a time,” Steve said. “We’ll make the list.”

“We’re going to need some serious evidence to take down a guy like Pierce,” Fury said. “And maybe not even then. He’s pretty damn powerful. And it needs to be dug up without attracting attention.”

“Hey, Tony,” Pepper said. “Didn’t you find stuff in the SHIELD dump that Obadiah was working with Hydra? Wasn’t Pierce mixed up in that?”

He squinted, tipping his head back in thought. "There was definitely a connection. Digging it out from scratch will be a nightmare.”

“Might be something we can dig out from our end, is what I mean.”

"It's certainly worth a shot."

"He's mentioned in the files on James, as well," Amanda said.

“Is any of that going to be enough for a court of law?” Hill asked. 

“Does it need to?” Clint asked. “Guys like that don’t get jailed, they get taken out. I know because I have done it. For SHIELD. A lot.”

"You cannot assassinate Alexander Pierce," Coulson said.

Nat arched a brow at him. "Why not? We've killed a lot less powerful people for you. He's done bad things, he will do worse things. That's usually been all the reasoning needed.”

“He’s a senior US government official. Our government, not other countries’.”

“Hydra executed a US President,” Tony said. “For de-escalating the Cuban Missile Crisis. And while we’re making a list, my parents.”

“Zola said Howard was on to them,” Steve said. “You don’t think he’ll come after us if he gets so much as a whiff?”

Coulson looked like he wanted to argue more, but Fury held up a hand. "Enough. I believe you about Pierce, but I really want some proof before I order a strike on the man."

Tony crossed his arms and looked at Steve, having one of those silent conversations they had sometimes. "Then we'll get some.”


	8. Chapter 8

SHIELD gave the portion of the group that worked for them a leave of absence to recover from the Battle of New York, buying them some time to get things in order. Everybody got to work. Pepper went back to being a CEO. Tony had all of Team Science—even roping in Rhodey—building things downstairs. Steve and Sharon and the rest of what you might call Team Spy began the complicated task of gathering names and evidence against Hydra. 

The real estate agent Jess had hired found a house outside DC for them in surprisingly short order. Nine bedrooms, 27K square feet, and full of all the amenities. And it was vacant. The owner, a bank that had foreclosed it, was thrilled to take a fast closing for cash. It had been on the market a long time. Which probably should have told her something.

Jess showed Pepper a couple of pictures, and it looked like a tacky, overwrought middle class McMansion that someone had blown up to a grand scale. It wasn’t exactly her taste, but they’d make do. It fit the bill. She was so unbelievably busy she didn’t have time to give it much thought.

“I’m sorry to bother you,” came Jess’s voice over the intercom. “Mr. Stark is here, and he’s insistent.”

“Send him in.” Maybe he’d brought Ruby.

He had, in fact. He’d also brought pictures of the house. “We need to talk about why I paid ten million dollars for an architectural travesty. The front facade has nine different kinds of windows.”

She reached for the baby. “It fit the bill.”

Ruby squealed as she was handed over. "It's a monstrosity. The architect was on crack. And not _good_ crack. Shitty crack.”

“I know,” Pepper said. “But you were probably going to hate anything we found.“

"There are pillars _in front_ of the windows.”

She leaned over to look. “Really?”

He pointed imperiously and, sure enough, a couple of the front pillars seemed to be situated in front of windows. "Not to mention I don't know how we're going to baby proof it.”

Those windows were very unfortunate. It was. . .such an ugly, ugly house. “She’s not going to be running loose in 27,000 square feet.”

Tony frowned and picked up the pictures. "So we'll need to make her a pen.”

“We’ll gate off some doorways. It will be fine.” Pepper had the sudden sense she was going to say that a lot.

“I need the wiring and IT infrastructure checked out,” he said. “I’m not living somewhere without JARVIS.”

*

Cal and Darcy flew back to DC well before the others, on recon missions related to the house the Avengers would be staying in. They flew commercial, but because Stark felt that coach class was an offense against man and God, they were first class seats. They looked like college students, and got plenty of side-eye. 

He went into work long enough to hand in his notice—it had been decided it was better if he in particular worked for Stark Industries from now on. Then he went home to get his stuff, introduce Darcy to his roommates, and leave them with a check for the rest of the year’s rent. He got to credit his new job for that.

“I can’t believe how gross it was in there,” he said to Darcy as they drove away. “Were we trying build Mt. Rushmore out of beer cans?”

"You are 23," she reminded him, checking the directions on her phone. "That was pretty tame for a post-grad boy's house.”

“I’m just saying, I don’t know how I lived like that.” He got onto the beltway. “Now, where are we going.”

"Potomac, Maryland. Head south and make a right after the river.”

The house wasn’t hard to find. They parked in the circular drive and both got out. It was enormous, and ornate, and not in a good way. “And suddenly I’m sorry I complained about Mt. Budmore.”

Darcy was, of course, grinning. "It's hideous, I love it." She caught his hand. "Let's go pick a room. Something with ridiculous curtains.”

It had a massive marbled front hall with a double staircase. The ceiling was literally gilded. Cal stared at it. “I don’t understand rich people.”

"Stark isn't like this, though. This is a particular breed of rich people.”

“He’s probably just as wasteful, he just has taste.”

She glanced down at the Stark tablet she was keeping track of everything on. "There's a movie theater.”

“I don’t think they’ll let us have that for our bedroom.”

"Probably not. Nor the ballroom. There is a servants quarters. And also a bizarre room on the top floor with port holes.”

“I’m for portholes,” he said. Because, really, who wasn’t?

They made their way upstairs, pausing to marvel at the ridiculous indoor balcony and hotel style carpeting. "There's also an elevator," Darcy told him as they hiked up to the fourth floor.

Cal sighed. “I’m going to have to figure out how to put JARVIS in it, aren’t I?” He grinned. “But I am glad JARVIS is back.”

"Oh, me too. FRIDAY was fine, but JARVIS was my man.”

The porthole room on the top floor was more space than their entire apartment in the tower had been. It was also painted a delightful shade of salmon.

Darcy looked thoughtful. "On the one hand, we should probably save this for someone with a kid or something. On the other hand, this color is a whole new level of atrocious and I can't wait to wake up to it every morning.”

“Neither of the parent sets are going to want to haul their kids up to the fourth floor. We’re young, we’ll take the bullet.”

She grinned and wrapped her arms around him. "And you don't have back problems anymore.”

“Oh. That’s got all kinds of possibilities, doesn’t it?”

"Doesn't it?" She glanced up. "I wonder if we could get a sex swing.”

*

Bruce had started his week attending a semi-impromptu wedding—Tony and Pepper had needed to get married to assist with the paperwork related to legitimizing Ruby—and ended it with packing a mansion and moving across the country. In the middle, he'd helped build a device that would sever a cosmic object older than the universe, and could theoretically blow up and kill everyone.

"If it helps," Thor said. "I think if it blows up I may just make everyone insane instead of kill us."

"That. . . that doesn't help," Bruce said. "Not at all."

"It'll be fine," Tony said. He was in his suit, as was Rhodes. The two of them and Thor were going to actually try to break the stone. Everybody else had gone down to the beach, which they felt was a safe distance.

Bruce was supposed to stay in case more brute force was needed. "Uh, do we want to pause and talk about this insanity thing?"

"It's just as likely it'll make us all crazy smart," Tony said in what was probably supposed to be a reassuring tone.

"It's just that I like my brain fine as it is."

"I'm more concerned about the other half of you going crazy," Rhodes said. "Just saying."

**HULK EAT HIM FIRST.**

_Shush_

"Let's just get it over with," Bruce said, since were was clearly not going to be any talking Tony out of this.

"Does anyone have any better ideas?" Tony asked.

"How confident are you it will work?"

He couldn't exactly make eye contact, but the armor did turn to face Bruce. "Given the power of these things, if I thought it had a real chance of blowing up, Ruby would be in San Francisco."

Bruce studied him a moment, then nodded. "Good enough for me, let's rip physics a new one."

He was still kind of surprised the whole thing worked.

**STONE EVIL. GOOD GONE.** Hulk told him.

"The Big Guy approves," he told the rest of them as Tony and Rhodey took their suits off.

"Good," Tony replied with a grin. "Now let's go pack."

*

"What the fuck is this sink for? Why is it on the floor?"

Bucky had stayed in a lot of strange places, but the World's Ugliest Mansion kind of took the cake. On the other hand, at least he was no longer on an airplane with three screaming children. The flight from LA had been fun.

Amanda appeared in the doorway, holding the top of the jamb and leaning in, stretching her arms. "The girls and I theorized it's for leg shaving.”

“Why would you need a whole separate thing for that? The tub and shower is _right there_.” 

"I have no idea, It was just the only thing we could think of. It's not a bidet and I sincerely doubt anyone thought someone would be washing a baby in it.”

It was too deep to be a sink, and too narrow for anyone to sit in it. It was like a Japanese soaking tub for a five year old. He rubbed his forehead. “Maybe we’ll just put a towel over it.”

"I intend to shave my legs in it.”

He turned to smile at her. “I suppose I approve of that.”

"Thought you might." He stepped closer and wrapped his arms around her. "This house is killing you, isn't it?”

“I mean. . . it’s going for something more my style than, say, that house in Malibu. It’s just missing really badly.” He scrubbed his face with his hand. “It’s doing nothing good for my sense of surreality and being off balance.”

She stroked his hair gently. "I know it's hitting you hard. How are the nightmares?”

“Weird? Which is guess is better than realistic. And I miss. . .our menagerie.”

"Me too." Her fingers played with his hair. She was probably secretly delighted it was longer. "We could go get more animals. I know it wouldn't be the same, but it might help.”

“Are we allowed to? There are a lot of people here.” But that also sounded really nice. It wasn’t the same. He missed Panzer, but he also missed having a dog, and one of those he could do something about.

"I could ask around, but I don't think anyone would mind. The kids would love it.”

“That would make me very happy.” He paused. “And it couldn’t possibly make the carpet worse.”

She laughed. "It might do it some favors.” She kissed him. "I'm going to go check out the lab space."

Once she'd left, he went to explore the rest of the house more. Eventually he made his way downstairs to see what Amanda was up to. He could hear the Time Travel Edition of the Doc’n’Tony Show from the stairs.

“Why does a room labeled a ballroom even _have_ carpet?”

“They do that in hotels. Anyway, it’s the biggest room, so it’s the lab.”

“It’s unsanitary, is what it is.”

The lower level of the house was a cavernous ‘entertaining’ space that really did look identical to the rentable spaces in a mid-range hotel. It looked like a convention was in town, as Cal had thick cords running in every direction out from the walls, so they’d have power. He was going to tape them all down once it had been decided where all the tables and stations would go. Bruce was on one side unpacking equipment while they argued.

All of Team Science was sharing the one space. That was going to go just great.

"I'll make a cleaning bot."

Amanda huffed out an irritated breath. "I'm going to have biological samples down here. You can't do that with carpeting."

Tony shrugged, walking away from her as if that had ever succeeded in ending an argument with her. "Don't spill things."

Sure enough, she was following him. "Fine, don't cause any fires or explosions.”

“Did anyone look to see what’s under it?” Bruce asked, and they both turned. “We’re underground, it’s probably concrete.”

She gestured at him emphatically and Tony threw up his hands. "Fine! I'll get someone to pull up the carpet."

From the doorway, Bucky said, "I am _dying_ to destroy something in this place.”

*

“I can’t believe how hot I am finding this.”

Most of the group had gathered, at this point, in the basement to watch Steve and Bucky rip up carpet. Didn’t seem like a sexy activity, but the were so strong they were just yanking up strips of it, ripping it with their bare hands like it was paper. Sharon was enjoying it immensely.

Amanda handed her a glass of sweet tea. "I am aroused by the show of strength and the impending loss of the carpet.”

“Is it wrong to hope they’ll take their shirts off?” Sharon asked her. Though she was enjoying Steve’s t-shirt plenty.

"That is not wrong," Darcy said. "I'm right there with you.”

“I’m a little sad I’m due back at work tomorrow.”

"There will be no super soldiers doing physical labor there.” Darcy looked around. “On the other hand, you won’t be stuck in an entire building decorated by someone’s grandmother in 1994.”

"I don't know, the decor at the Trisk isn't exactly provocative.”

“The Trisk was designed by someone who owned a lot of stock in a cement company,” Amanda said.

"And glass," Steve called. "Really pointy glass.”

“Let’s see if we can avoid you throwing yourself through it this time around.”

"Would really appreciate that." The sentence ended on a grunt and a ripping of fabric that made several of the ladies - Sharon included - tilt their heads in appreciation.

*

The house was weird and ugly and contained a nearly overwhelming amount of pink paint and floral fabrics mixed with random assortment of furniture Darcy had managed to dig up on short notice. 

It also had a completely decorative, nonfunctional chimney at the peak of its highest roof, and when Clint climbed up and sat on it, it had really excellent sight lines. It was something.

"Never have you looked so much like a gargoyle," Nat called from the roof top.

He looked over at her. “You didn’t have to come up here.”

"I just wanted to check one you.”

“Just having a minute of space. I have to go into the Trisk tomorrow and am so looking forward to having everyone give me the fish-eye.”

She nodded. "I know that bothered you a lot last time.”

“Yeah. Nothing can be done for it, though. Just something to get through.” He felt pretty off-balance. Climbing up on the roof was the sort of thing that reminded him exactly who he was.

Nat paused a moment, head tipped back to look at him. "You need anything?”

“I’m okay,” he replied.

“Well, when you feel like it, come down to our room. I have a surprise for you.”

He turned his head and raised an eyebrow. She smiled enigmatically but not seductively, so it wasn’t a smutty surprise. But she’d clearly meant to entice him to follow her back inside. “I’ll be in in a minute,” he said.

"All right. No rush." She rapped the chimney with a knuckle and edged her way back to the window she'd slipped out of.

He was curious, but he gave her a minute before following. She liked adding a little dose of spy games to their life. Maybe it _was_ a smutty surprise after all, and she was just upping her cover.

Then he made his way back down to their room, the one with the weird yellow flocked wallpaper and enough space to house an entire family but a postage stamp closet. He saw it the moment he walked in, and was actually startled. 

It was their couch.

"Ta da!" she said with a little Vanna White flourish.

“How did you. . .?” But he realized, of course, she’d had the couch that long. When she’d taken him home after the Battle, after Loki, and tried to put his head back together. Only time in his adult life he’s sobbed like a baby had been on that couch. After SHIELD fell they stuffed it into a van and took it to the cold and damp dam they were staying in with Fury’s crew. And then they drove it to New York and carried it up the elevator in Stark tower one piece at a time.

The leather was smooth and new, not covered with the cracks and wear and cat claw puncture holes of the last five years—but it was their couch. It was familiar, and it was here. “I love you,” he said quietly.

She smiled and stepped close, tucking her arms around him. "I love you, too. I got your back.”

“Time to embrace this version of our lives, I guess.” He kissed the top of her head, the murmured, “In this timeline, it hasn’t been christened.”

He felt her chuckle. "We should do something about that."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the last full-sized chapter. There is an after-credits/one-shot scene that will post on Thursday, and then we'll begin posting the couple stories. This one was really an opening/jumping off point for those.


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Call this the post-credits scene.

When he'd first started working with the Avengers, Sam hadn't wanted to give up his place and his work in DC. It wasn't really a full time job, so that had been okay with the rest of them. But he was starting to get really tired of the commute.

At the moment, he was really, really late for a party he wanted to go to. Steve had been texting him there was Asgardian Mead. Not that Sam drank that. But Steve and Bucky drunk singing was worth the drive. Maybe he'd get there in time for the encore.

It was embarrassing how long it took him to get the elevator to take him to the right floor without JARVIS. There were buttons, but they weren't labeled. Though for a moment he thought he'd gotten the wrong one, because when he stepped out, the only person there was some white dude in a big red cape.

"You one of Thor's friends?" he asked, already resigned to the fight he was probably about to have. The situation had that vibe, and the guy looked like he'd been in one already. Where was everyone else?

"Oh!" The man said. "Good, you _are_ here. You definitely should go too."

Sam reached for his knife. "Go where?" Almost before he could finish the words a blast of green light flew out from the man and crashed into him.

He fell backward, but when he hit the floor it was sand. And suddenly bright daylight and hot as hell. He blinked at the sky for a moment, stunned.

"Wilson! Jesus, are you okay?"

That was an impossible voice, and when he sat up he saw an impossible face swing into view. "Riley?"


End file.
